Prince Mohammed, the de facto ruler of the world’s second-largest oil producer, arrived at Orly airport on Wednesday night after a red-carpet stop in Greece and was greeted by French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, French media reported. He will be welcomed to the Elysee Palace on Thursday for a working dinner at which the French president is expected to ask him to boost oil production in Saudi Arabia amid growing Western concern over winter energy shortages following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The visit marks a further step in the rehabilitation of Prince Mohammed after Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018 in what a UN investigation described as an “extrajudicial killing for which Saudi Arabia is responsible”. The investigation concluded there was “credible evidence” to warrant further investigation of high-level Saudi officials, including Prince Mohammed, who US intelligence claimed approved the operation. Riyadh has blamed rogue agents. US President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia earlier this month, greeting the crown prince with a fist bump, while Macron visited the kingdom for talks with him last December and Britain’s Boris Johnson followed suit in March. Joe Biden punches Mohammed bin Salman during visit to Saudi Arabia – video Human rights groups were strongly critical. Prince Mohammed’s visit to France and Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia “do not change this fact [Prince Mohammed] he is anything but a murderer,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary-general, describing the 36-year-old crown prince as a man who “does not tolerate dissent”. Callamard, who at the time of the killing was the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings and led its independent inquiry, told AFP she was “deeply troubled by the visit, because of what it means for our world and what it means to Jamal [Khashoggi] and people like him.” The crown prince’s reception by world leaders was “all the more shocking given that many of them expressed at the time their revulsion and commitment not to bring him back into the international community,” he added, denouncing “double standards” and “values … that are eliminated”. in view of the concern about the rise in the price of oil”. The head of the French Observatory for Human Rights, Bénédicte Jeannerod, tweeted that bin Salman could “apparently count on Emmanuel Macron to restore him to the international stage despite the horrific murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the relentless suppression of all criticism by Saudi authorities and war crimes in Yemen”. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Julien Bayou, head of the opposition Green party (EELV), said he was “shocked” that France “completely abandons the idea of defending human rights in the world… Emmanuel Macron was forced to roll out the red carpet because we need oil.” Dependence on fossil fuels means we are selling our principles cheap.” Two NGOs, the US-based Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn), which Khashoggi founded in 2018, and the Swiss campaign Trial International, filed a joint formal complaint in Paris on Thursday against Prince Mohammed for “complicity in torture ” and “enforced disappearance”. The initiative, supported by the Open Society Justice Initiative, was filed under universal jurisdiction, which allows a state to try crimes against humanity, war crimes and acts of torture committed outside its territory. NGOs argued that as crown prince, Prince Mohammed does not benefit from diplomatic immunity. “As a party to the conventions against torture and enforced disappearances, France is obliged to investigate a suspect like Bin Salman if he is on French soil,” said Dawn executive director Sarah Leah Whitson, according to Le Monde. Abdullah Alaoudh, Dawn’s Gulf region director, told FranceInfo radio that Prince Mohammed’s visit to France was “shameful. We think he is trying to erase his crimes… He is an unstable dictator and walking hand in hand with him is dishonorable.” Legal experts said it was unlikely Prince Mohammed would be summoned during his stay, as it would normally take weeks before an investigator is appointed. However, the crown prince may be prevented from returning to France by the complaint, an NGO lawyer told the newspaper.
