Eight people convicted of killing the journalist Jamal Khashoggi have today been spared the death penalty after his family announced a series of pardons.
A Saudi Arabian court handed out a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for five people, while another received a 10-year sentence, and two more were ordered to serve seven years behind bars.
The court issued final verdicts on Monday after the Washington Post columnist and Saudi critic was murdered in late 2018 in the Saudi consulate in Turkey.
Mr Khashoggi family announced pardons that spared five of the convicted individuals, who have not been named, from execution.
Five people were previously sentenced to death in the case, but were able to appeal.
Saudi Arabia’s state television aired few details on Monday about the final verdicts issued by Riyadh Criminal Court against the eight Saudi nationals and did not make their names public.
The trial was widely criticised by rights groups and an independent UN investigator, who noted that no senior officials nor anyone suspected of ordering the killing was found guilty.
The independence of the court was also brought into question.
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.
Among those ensnared in the killing are a forensic doctor, intelligence and security officers and individuals who worked for the crown prince’s office.
The crown prince has denied any knowledge of the operation.
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MORE : Five sentenced to death over murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi