A Saudi Arabian court today sentenced eight people to between seven and 20 years in prison in the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
According to the kingdom’s state-run Al Ekhbariya TV, five people were handed 20-year prison sentences.
One person was sentenced to 10 years and two persons were handed seven-year sentences, Ekhbariya reported.
AP reported that the trial was widely criticized by rights groups.
An independent U.N. investigator noted that no senior officials nor anyone suspected of ordering the killing was found guilty.
The independence of the court was also questioned.
Prior to his killing, Khashoggi had written critically of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in columns for the Washington Post.
He’d been living in exile in the United States for about a year as Prince Mohammed oversaw a crackdown in Saudi Arabia on human rights activists, writers and critics of the kingdom’s devastating war in Yemen.
Khashoggi was killed in late 2018 inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey.
Among those ensnared in the killing are a forensic doctor, intelligence and security officers and individuals who worked for the crown prince’s office.
Crown Prince Salman has denied any knowledge of the operation.
