PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday warmly welcomed Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for talks in Paris, defying anger sparked by hosting the controversial strongman less than four years after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The meeting is the latest step in the diplomatic rehabilitation of the de-facto leader of the kingdom who became a pariah in the West following the killing of Khashoggi by Saudi agents inside Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate.

Macron warmly greeted the ruler universally known as MBS ahead of a dinner, with the two men enjoying a warm handshake that they emphasised by using all four hands.

Shaking off criticism from rights groups and Khashoggi’s fiancé, Macron then guided MBS up the steps on the red carpet into the Elysee Palace. MBS, seen by supporters as an ambitious and by critics as a tyrant with a ruthless streak, arrived in France following a visit from US President Joe Biden to Riyadh earlier this month. On his way to France, he stopped in Greece this week, his first trip to the EU since the murder of Khashoggi.

The killing of Khashoggi was described by a UN probe as an “extrajudicial killing for which Saudi Arabia is responsible”.

US intelligence agencies determined that MBS had “approved” the operation that led to Khashoggi’s death. Riyadh denies this, blaming rogue operatives.

“I am scandalised and outraged that Emmanuel Macron is receiving with all the honours the executioner of my fiancé, Jamal Khashoggi,” his widow Hatice Cengiz, who had waited outside the consulate in Istanbul when her husband disappeared, said on Thursday.

“All the international investigations carried out up to this point...recognise the responsibility of MBS in the assassination,” Cengiz said.

Amnesty International secretary general Agnes Callamard said she felt “profoundly troubled by the visit, because of what it means for our world and what it means for Jamal (Khashoggi) and people like him”. MBS is a man who “does not tolerate any dissent”, she added.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2022