The United Kingdom on Wednesday said that it will revoke the visas of the Saudi Arabian suspects involved in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, AFP reported. Prime Minister Theresa May told a session of parliament that Home Secretary Savid Javid is taking action all the suspects to prevent them from entering the country.
“If these individuals currently have visas, those visas will be revoked today,” she said.
May’s decision comes a day after the United States said it had identified 21 Saudi officials whose visas would be either revoked or who would become ineligible for visas in the future for their alleged involvement in Khashoggi’s murder.
Khashoggi, a columnist with The Washington Post, went missing in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago. On Saturday, Riyadh admitted that the journalist had been killed. Saudi Arabia has denied knowing anything about his death, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said it was a planned affair.
May strongly condemned the journalist’s killing and called upon Saudi Arabia to cooperate with Turkey and conduct “a full and credible investigation”, reported The Guardian. “The claim that has been made that Mr Khashoggi died in a fight does not amount to a credible explanation so there does remain an urgent need to establish what has happened in relation to this,” she said.
May said that she expected to speak to Saudi King Salman later on Wednesday in order to exert diplomatic pressure for a speedy and transparent investigation.
May’s government has been under increasing pressure to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia in the wake of Khashoggi’s death. The prime minister said that Britain’s defence export controls were “among the strictest in the world” and that the arms sales policy to Saudi Arabia was “under review”.
“The foreign secretary and the foreign ministers and our ambassador have been making our position very clear to the Saudi Arabians,” May said.
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