Demonstrators dressed as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US President Donald Trump pretend to kiss in a demonstration outside the White House in October 2018 (Jim WATSON)

Washington (AFP) – Rights groups pressed US President Donald Trump to take action over Saudi Arabia’s killing of dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi on the eve of a Friday deadline by Congress to punish perpetrators.

Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post who lived in self-imposed exile in Virginia, was killed and dismembered when he visited the conservative kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

A special UN rapporteur said Thursday that the killing was “planned and perpetrated” by Saudi officials.

In October, the then top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee invoked the Magnitsky Act, which gave the Trump administration 120 days — until February 8 — to determine who was behind Khashoggi’s killing and to describe actions against them.

The law, which targets extrajudicial killings and torture, is named for Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption accountant who died in Russian custody.

In a joint statement Thursday accompanied by a rally outside the White House, six advocacy groups including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists urged Trump to lay out action over Khashoggi’s killing and to release CIA records on the death.

“Notwithstanding public and congressional outrage and the reported findings of the CIA, the Trump administration appears to be engaged in a cover-up on behalf of the Saudi government,” they wrote.

The groups called for “an effective, independent, international investigation” and the immediate release of other journalists and activists detained in Saudi Arabia.

The kingdom’s promises to prosecute those responsible have turned into a “sham,” the groups said, with senior officials resigning rather than facing repercussions.

The Trump administration revoked visas for nearly two dozen Saudi officials over Khashoggi’s killing and froze assets of some 17 others.

But Trump also said in a blunt statement that the killing was not worth jeopardizing the alliance with Saudi Arabia, crediting the kingdom with buying US weapons and supporting its hard line on regional rival Iran.

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