One of the suspected killers of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has reportedly been arrested in France as he was about to board a flight to Riyadh.

Khalid Aedh al-Otaibi was arrested at Charles-de-Gaulle airport on Tuesday, according to French media.

The 33-year-old has been named as one of the 26 Saudis wanted by Turkey over the journalist’s killing in the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018.

French radio RTL, which broke the story, said he was travelling under his real name and has been placed in judicial detention.

It added that Mr al-Otaibi was a former Royal Guard of Saudi Arabia.

Mr Khashoggi, a prominent critic of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, was a US resident and former Washington Post columnist.

Though Saudi Arabia has claimed he was murdered and dismembered in a “rogue operation” by a team of agents who were sent to persuade him to return to the country, Turkish officials have said the squad acted on orders from the Saudi government.

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Eight unnamed people were convicted over the murder by a Saudi court in 2019 but the trial was dismissed as the “antithesis of justice” by the UN.

In 2019, a report by UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard said Saudi prosecutors had ordered the arrest of Mr al-Otaibi as part of an investigation into the journalist’s murder, but had decided not to charge him.