SAUDI Arabia’s top prosecutor has recommended the death penalty for five suspects charged with ordering and carrying out the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

The move appears to have distanced Mohammed bin Salman from the controversy, with the kingdom’s foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir later telling reporters that the killing had “absolutely” nothing to do with the crown prince.

READ MORE: What happened to missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi?

The announcement by the kingdom’s top prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, was published in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

The death of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who had been critical of the crown prince, has led many analysts and officials to believe it could not have been carried out without the prince’s knowledge.

Turkey says an assassination squad was sent and insists the orders for the killing came from the highest levels of the Saudi government, but not King Salman.

After issuing the statement, the spokesman for Al-Mojeb’s office, Shalan al-Shalan, told a rare press conference yesterday in Riyadh that the journalist’s killers had set in motion plans for the killing on September 29, three days before his murder in Istanbul.