Suspected member of Khashoggi hit squad arrested at Paris airport

FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019 file photo, a Turkish police officer walks past a picture of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi prior to a ceremony, near the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, marking the one-year anniversary of his death. © AP (Archive)

PARIS, FRANCE - A suspected member of the team that murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, Khalid Alotaibi, was arrested at Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris on Tuesday, judicial and airport sources said.

Police sources told the Reuters news agency that France acted on a warrant issued by Turkey in 2019

French radio RTL earlier said the person arrested was a former Royal Guard of Saudi Arabia who is believed to have been involved in the killing of Kashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.

RTL said the name of the arrested person was Khalid Aedh Alotaibi. His name appeared in a Washington Post investigation on the alleged hit squad, based on passport copies and travel details.

Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi who lived in self-exile in the United States and wrote for The Washington Post, was strangled by a hit squad in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and his body dismembered.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)