Independent reported in 23 July that, Ministers signed off nearly £650m worth of arms licence exports to Saudi Arabiain the six months following the brutal murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by regime forces.
Despite the killing being condemned last year in the “strongest possible terms” by the foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, the UK government continued “business as usual” with the regime, critics have claimed.
According to a fresh analysis from the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), the UK licensed £648m worth of arms to the kingdom between in October 2018 and March 2019.
It also comes as the government fights a decision by the Court of Appeal, which ruled in June that British arms sales to Saudi Arabia were unlawful. Judges claimed ministers had made “no concluded assessments” of whether the Saudi-led coalition had violated humanitarian law in the ongoing, brutal war in Yemen.
