On Thursday, the Saudi Prosecutor General's Office demanded the death penalty for five defendants accused in the Khashoggi murder case. Moreover, the authorities detained 21 people and charged 11 suspects in the case. Riyadh said the head of the team tasked with Khashoggi's repatriation to Saudi Arabia had given the order to kill the journalist in case the operation to convince Khashoggi to return failed.
"Egypt has closely followed the Saudi judicial authorities’ statement of November 15 on the results of the investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi that have shown that the kingdom was serious and acted transparently in search of truth … Egypt reiterates one more time that it fully trusts the Saudi prosecutors and the results of the probe," the country's foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Cairo called on all the interested parties to take the result of the probe into consideration and refrain from the politicisation of the case and speculations about it.
The Bahraini Foreign Ministry on Thursday also expressed its support for the measures taken by the Saudi authorities in the Khashoggi case.
"The Kingdom affirms that these steps reflect the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s keenness to hold accountable and punish all those involved in this case and its full commitment to achieve justice with integrity and transparency. The Kingdom of Bahrain stresses its categorical rejection of all attempts to politicise or exploit this case with the aim of harming the interests of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and violating its sovereignty, security and stability, as well as the attempts to divide the Islamic nation," the ministry said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates, in a statement issued by its foreign ministry, warned against politicising the killing, saying it "valued the steps taken by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia towards the case as well as the measures taken to hold accountable those behind the murder."
Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are members of the League of Arab States.
Khashoggi, a US-based Saudi opposition journalist who worked for the Washington Post, went missing after visiting the Saudi consulate in Turkey on October 2. After repeated denials, the Saudi authorities acknowledged in late October that the journalist had been killed inside the diplomatic mission’s building.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry maintains that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud was not involved in the murder, thus denying claims that the crown prince had ordered the killing.
Turkey, which is carrying out a separate investigation into the Khashoggi murder, claims that the Saudi statement in the case is insufficient.
