Five were found guilty in the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi who was named TIME’s peson of the year in 2018.  Three people were found guilty of covering the crime up.  In all, eleven people were put on trial.

In Saudi Arabia, executions are carried out by beheading.  The guilty persons may be beheaded in public.  The names of the people found guilty were not publically announced.

Khashoggi was a journalist who spoke out very openly about the leadership and royalty in Saudi Arabia.  He was also a U.S. resident.  When he felt his life was endangered in Saudi Arabia in 2017, he moved to the U.S. and started working for The Washingon Post.  He was a columnist there until his death. He often wrote about human rights violations in Saudi Arabia.

On September 28, 2018, Khashoggi went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get documentation that he was officially divorced so he could get remarried.  He told his fiance to wait outside the consulate and call the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, if he did not come out.  She remained outside the consulate for 10 hours and then came back the next morning.  Originally the Saudi government denied any wrong-doing and assured the world that Khashoggi had come out of hte consulate a few minutes to an hour after he entered.  

While in the Saudi consulate, Khashoggi was beheaded, dismembered, and his fingers severed.