The Associated Press reports, citing Saudi state media that eleven suspects in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi have attended their first court hearing where Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for five suspects.
The trial is the latest development in a case that has triggered a reckoning about U.S. support of Saudi Arabia in the war in Yemen, as well as the financial influence of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
Meanwhile, U.S. senators have been outraged by the killing. A resolution banning U.S. military aircraft from providing in-flight fueling to “non-U.S. aircraft” conducting missions in the Yemen conflict passed with bipartisan support in December.
The Senate also passed a resolution meant to hold Mohammed bin Salman responsible for the killing of Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia has rejected that accusation.
Jamal Khashoggi was a journalist writing for The Washington Post and living in self-imposed exile in the United States. He entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 and never emerged.