According to US intelligence, bin Salman approved of Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. “Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to France (…) does not change the fact that he is a mansassin,” Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur investigating the murder of the government critic, told AFP.
“Will the dismembered body of Khashoggi be on the agenda at the Emmanuel Macron-MBS meeting? The climate chaos? human rights? (…) No, it’s going to be regarding oil and guns,” former green presidential candidate Yannick Jadot wrote on Twitter.
Warm welcome at the Elysee Palace
Almost four years following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was received in France for the first time. President Emmanuel Macron greeted bin Salman with a long handshake upon his arrival in Paris. Human rights groups had previously protested once morest the meeting.
Khashoggi’s Turkish fiancée also condemned Macron’s meeting with bin Salman. “I am shocked and outraged that Emmanuel Macron received my fiancé Jamal Khashoggi’s executioner with full honours,” said Hatice Cengiz. “The increase in energy prices because of the war in Ukraine cannot justify our exonerating those responsible for Saudi Arabian politics to political opponents in the name of a supposed realpolitik.”
With Biden’s visit from isolation
French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire welcomed the Crown Prince on Wednesday evening when he arrived in Paris. Bin Salman traveled from Greece. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis gave him a “warm welcome” in Athens on Tuesday, as the Crown Prince said.
Bin Salman owns a Palace of Versailles-style residence near Paris, which he bought in 2015 for €275 million. It was considered the most expensive property in the world at the time. It was built, of all people, by a cousin of Khashoggi, who was later murdered.
With the exception of trips to the Middle East, bin Salman had officially only traveled to Japan for the G-20 summit since the murder in autumn 2018. However, the extensive isolation in the West dissolved with the visit of US President Joe Biden to Saudi Arabia two weeks ago. Macron also visited the crown prince in December, and Mitsotakis traveled to the desert state on the Arabian Peninsula in 2020 and 2021.
Talks regarding oil production
The increased interest in Saudi Arabia is also a consequence of the Ukraine war and the associated explosion in energy prices. The West has so far tried in vain to persuade Saudi Arabia to increase oil production so that the price of oil falls and inflation is curbed.
Bin Salman sees the Khashoggi affair as a “tragedy” that is now over. According to Riyadh, those responsible have been identified and convicted. Two years ago, a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced eight men to between seven and 20 years in prison for the murder. The Crown Prince rejects any alleged joint responsibility.
Criminal complaint filed in Paris
The 59-year-old Khashoggi, who wrote for the Washington Post, went to the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 to pick up papers for his upcoming wedding. According to official information from Turkey and the USA, a 15-man commando from Saudi Arabia was waiting there, murdered him, dismembered his body and made the remains disappear.
Khashoggi-founded human rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and Trial International filed a criminal complaint in Paris on Thursday accusing bin Salman of complicity in the crime. “The French authorities should immediately launch a criminal investigation into MBS,” said Dawn CEO Sarah Leah Whiston.
