Five Saudi officials face the death penalty over the alleged murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate, Riyadh’s public prosecutor said on Thursday.

However, he said Saudi crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman has not been implicated in the murder.

A spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office, in the first Saudi acknowledgement of the manner of his killing, said Khashoggi, a vocal dissident, died after being drugged by the five accused and then dismembered.

He said the journalist’s body parts were then handed over to an agent outside the consulate grounds.