UN Rapporteur Suggests Creating International Team Of Investigators For Khashoggi Case

GENEVA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th June, 2019) The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, invited on Wednesday UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to create an international team of criminal investigators to bring light to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

"I suggested to the secretary-general of the United Nations to put in place an international criminal team that will do what I was not able to do, which is to really determine with certainty individual liability for the crime, including at the highest level ... Who ordered the crime? Who turned a blind eye to the crime? Who incited the crime? None of those questions have been answered. Where is the body? That has not been answered. That is what the criminal investigation should do, that is why I have asked for the security-general to put in place such an international team of criminal investigators," Callamard said.

She noted that, from her point of view, creating this special mechanism required neither a UN Security Council resolution, nor an official request from the UN member states.

The rapporteur also said that the killing of Khashoggi met the criteria to be treated as an international crime, which meant that universal jurisdiction can be applied to it.

"The paralysis that we are witnessing, the ping-pong game between who can do what and inability of the secretary-general to determine whether or not he can move with something, all of those things will be solved if there is a standing instrument, who could just take upon itself this kind of crime.

So I think it will solve a lot of issues," Callamard added.

Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, went missing last October after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Riyadh initially denied any knowledge of the journalist's whereabouts but eventually admitted that Khashoggi was killed and dismembered inside the embassy.

Last week, Callamard issued a report concluding that Khashoggi's death was a premeditated extrajudicial murder for which Saudi Arabia is responsible. She called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to launch a follow-up criminal probe into the killing due to "credible evidence" that warrants further investigation of senior Saudi officials, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Earlier this week, Callamard told Sputnik that the United Nations should create a special mechanism to investigate murders of journalists and human rights activists.

Saudi authorities have charged 11 people with Khashoggi's murder but have repeatedly denied any involvement of the royal family in the case.