Khalid al-Otaibi, a 33-year-old Saudi man, arrested Tuesday by border police at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, should be released by Thursday, December 9 in the morning. According to Le Figaro, which reveals this information, the thirty-something would have been arrested in error. At the time of a check, an Interpol red notice – created as part of the investigation into the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi – was triggered on his name. But it would be a namesake of the real suspect. The wrong person would therefore have been arrested.
A Saudi security source, consulted by Agence France-Presse, also assures us that the man arrested was the victim of an identity error. This same source clarified that “hundreds of Saudis bear the same name”.
The Saudi embassy reported Tuesday evening that Khalid al-Otaibi had “no connection with the case” and that “those responsible for the murder” of Jamal Khashoggi, who disappeared in 2018, and whose body – dismembered – did not never been found, had been found and tried in Saudi Arabia, where they are now believed to be in detention.
Khalid al-Otaibi’s arrest came as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman continued his tour of his Gulf neighbors on Wednesday. Mohammed ben Salman, known as “MBS”, who rules de facto Saudi Arabia, has been in the United Arab Emirates since Tuesday evening, after a visit to Oman and before going to Qatar in particular, as part of a regional tour. ahead of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in mid-December.
