Saudi rights record under fire at UN

GENEVA: Saudi Arabia insisted at the UN Monday that its investigation into the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi would be “fair”, amid a barrage of criticism from countries over the brutal murder.

The half-day public debate at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva comes just over a month after the royal insider-turned-critic was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkey confirmed last week that Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the consulate on October 2 as part of a planned hit, and his body was then dismembered and destroyed. The so-called Universal Periodic Review — which all 193 UN countries must undergo approximately every four years — came as a Turkish official charged Monday that Saudi Arabia had sent experts to Turkey to cover up the journalist´s murder before allowing Turkish police in to search the consulate.