RIYADH: Salman Al-Ansari, a renowned Saudi political analyst, said during an interview with news channel Al Arabiya that Turki Al-Jasser, who was arrested in 2018 and executed last Saturday, was not a journalist, as many posts on social media accounts claimed after his death was announced. Al-Jasser was “literally a terrorist (and) a traitor, and he had nothing to do with journalism,” Al-Ansari said. Media reports describing him as a journalist were a “fabrication,” he added.

The death of Turki al-Jasser was the first high-profile killing of a journalist since the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi

Turki Al-Jasser, who was in his late 40s, was put to death on Saturday, according to the official Saudi Press Agency, after the death penalty was upheld by the nation's top court.