Macron hosts Saudi crown prince amid continued uproar over Khashoggi’s murder
French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman amid the West’s efforts to welcome Riyadh back into the international fold despite global outrage at the kingdom’s atrocities.
This comes as the international community is still reeling from the 2018 grisly murder and dismemberment of bin Salman critic and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi as well as the kingdom’s now-seven-year-old war on Yemen.
The United States’ intelligence sources have concluded that the murder was directly ordered by the Saudi de-facto ruler. The claim has been corroborated by many leading global human rights organizations.
The West, however, is heavily dependent on Saudi energy exports as it is trying to wean itself off Russian supplies. Macron is expected to ask Saudi Arabia to increase production.
US President Joe Biden also travelled to Saudi Arabia recently in a major step aimed at rehabilitating bin Salman’s image.
Reflecting on the meeting between the Saudi royal, who is also known as MBS, and Macron, the fiancée of the late Khashoggi, Hatice Cengiz, told AFP, "I am scandalized and outraged that Emmanuel Macron is receiving with all the honors the executioner of my fiancé, Jamal Khashoggi."
Agnes Callamard, the former United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, said, "The visit by MBS to France and Joe Biden to Saudi Arabia do not change the fact that MBS is anything other than a killer."
His reception by world leaders is "all the more shocking given many of them at the time expressed disgust [over the killing] and a commitment not to bring MBS back into the international community," she added, denouncing the "double standard."
Last December, Macron also became the first Western leader to visit Saudi Arabia since the Khashoggi affair.
Also on Thursday, three rights bodies, including the Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), which has been created by Khashoggi, filed a criminal complaint in Paris accusing MBS of being an accomplice to the crime.
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