Both Mohammed bin Salman and the kingdom faced intense international uproar over the killing in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, which the US intelligence services believe the crown prince was directly responsible for.

A US resident who wrote critically about the oil-rich kingdom in The Washington Post, Khashoggi was strangled and then dismembered inside the Saudi consulate.

Khashoggi’s employer, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), and the rights group Trial International had petitioned the French courts on the matter during Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to France in July 2022.

They were subsequently joined by a complaint from press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF.

“An investigating judge from the crimes against humanity unit will now investigate the complaint” for torture and enforced disappearances, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office confirmed when contacted by AFP.

It comes after years of legal wrangling, with the prosecutor’s office opposed to opening a case in France on admissibility grounds.

But in a decision handed down on Monday, the Court of Appeal ruled in the rights groups’ favour, which DAWN hailed as a key step towards obtaining justice for the journalist’s killing.

“The crime of which Jamal Khashoggi was a victim is an abominable crime, decided and planned at the highest level of the Saudi state, which had a journalist executed who was a dissident and independent voice,” said Emmanuel Daoud, a lawyer for RSF.

Trial International’s lawyer, Henri Thulliez, said there “should no longer be any obstacle to opening a judicial investigation into the atrocious crime committed against Jamal Khashoggi.”