Germany resists pressure to ease Saudi arms export halt

His strongly-worded letter, first reported by Der Spiegel and seen by Reuters, followed complaints last week from a top Airbus official who told Reuters that the halt was preventing Britain from completing the sale of 48 Eurofighter Typhoon warplanes to Riyadh. He said the issue was also affecting potential sales of other weapons such as the A400M military transporter.

Eurofighter is built by a consortium of four founding countries - Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain - represented by Airbus, BAE and Italy’s Leonardo

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a team of Saudi operatives on Oct. 2, provoking an international backlash. Riyadh has denied the crown prince had any involvement.