On 23 December 2019, Saudi Arabia sentenced five people to death for the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and charged three others with a prison term of 24 years. The list of those sentenced did not include Mohammed al-Otaibi and Former royal adviser Saud al-Qahtani, accused of playing a major role in the assassination. Qahtani, who was under investigation earlier, was released with no evidence found against him. After Khashoggi's son pardoned the accused, sparing five of the accused from execution, Saudi Arabia's criminal court sentenced eight convicts in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Five of the accused were sentenced to 20 years in prison, one was sentenced for 10 years and the remaining two were each sentenced to 7 years in prison. The verdict was issued in a closed court hearing. The UN special rapporteur Agnès Callamard said that the Mohammed bin Salman remained "well protected against any kind of meaningful scrutiny in his country" and called the verdict a "parody of justice".