Beirut | Saudi Arabia sentenced five men to death and three to prison terms over the killing of the Saudi dissident writer Jamal Mr Khashoggi in Istanbul, a ruling widely dismissed as punishing low-level agents while protecting their leaders.

The sentences, announced by a government spokesman on Monday, reflected the Saudi argument that the killing was not ordered by the royal court, but was instead a last-minute decision by agents on the ground — a narrative that contradicts ample indications that the agents arrived in Istanbul last year with an intent to kill and the tools to do so.