The Khashoggi trial verdict has brought no closure to this tragedy – but it has weakened the Saudi kingdom

Editorial: The country must change – it is in no one’s interests to see it fall into decline and disarray

“The antithesis of justice.” That was the verdict of Agnes Callamard the UN special rapporteur, on the outcome of the Khashoggi trial. It was the soundest verdict of the day.

If this exercise in rigged justice was supposed to answer the questions raised by the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and end the controversy, it has failed miserably. The outrage of the extrajudicial murder on foreign soil of a man whose only crime is to be a dissident continues to shame the Saudi government. It was more than a mere spur of the moment killing; it was a premeditated assassination by torture. The weight of evidence, including audiotapes, cannot be discounted.

As the UN representative indicates, it is impossible to believe that the five wretches now sentenced to death acted alone, and without the connivance of far more senior authorities – perhaps leading towards the very apex of the state. Ms Callamard’s message is damning and clear: “Bottom line: the hitmen are guilty, sentenced to death. The masterminds not only walk free – they have barely been touched by the investigation and the trial.” She might have added that five of the hitmen will soon take their secrets to their own graves, their testimony as to who ordered what and when never to be heard.

Only a state as oblivious to human rights and the sanctity of life as Saudi Arabia could compound the murder of one man with the judicial murder of five more. And with such a disdain for the rule of law and the norms of a fair trial – which every person has the right to – the death penalty is itself a denial of the right to life.

So flimsy is the pretence to justice in this affair that even the Johnson government cannot support it fully. The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, in a guarded but unmistakeable comment, called for “all of those responsible” to answer for their role. No one, in other words, believes this should be the end of the matter. Nor will it be.

The very secrecy of the trial obviously leaves much that is murky and mysterious. Into the vacuum of doubt and suppression of the truth will rush many conspiracy theories, some generated by Saudi Arabia’s enemies, and they will find a ready audience. Perhaps we will never discover the honest truth.

So, far from shutting up one mildly troublesome critic, then, the Saudi government has contrived to destabilise the kingdom itself.

Indeed almost everything that has happened since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman​ took over effective control in 2017 has served to make his kingdom less secure. The early optimism about his reforming zeal has proven unfounded. The pitiless conflict in Yemen, in reality, a proxy war with regional rival, Iran, has continued to drain the kingdom’s resources and stamina, and provoked attacks on its own territory, oil installations and citizens.

Critics point to the influence of Salafism and Wahhabism as fundamental weaknesses in the state’s ability to run itself and its foreign relations responsibly. There is no true freedom of speech or rule of law (as the Khashoggi murder proved), no dissent and criticism when the authorities make mistakes and no free economic agency to ensure that the kingdom provides a living for its citizens when the oil runs out. What Saudi Arabia does have is a clumsy police state. The limited liberalisation of rights for women is welcome, but obviously too slow and modest.

It is in no one’s interests, bar regional rivals such as Iran and Russia, and the violent Islamists, to see the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia fall into decline and disarray. The world may not wish it so, for all manner of reasons, but the kingdom remains the world’s biggest oil exporter, a military and economic power in the Middle East and a counterweight to Iran and Russia.

It remains an ally of the west, albeit deeply flawed. Far worse could easily follow the collapse of the ruling dynasty. Imagine a militant Islamist entity with Saudi billions to fuel its ambitions. Yet even the patience of the Americans has worn thin in recent years at the way Saudi Arabia keeps making itself less secure. It has to change.