Briefly

FRANCE

France frees man over Khashoggi link

A Saudi man arrested at a Paris airport over suspected links to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was released on Wednesday after officials concluded it was a case of mistaken identity, Paris prosecutors said. Earlier on Tuesday, French police arrested a man that investigators claimed to be a suspect involved in the 2018 murder of Khashoggi. However, Saudi officials said they were holding the wrong man. Late on Tuesday, the Saudi embassy in Paris issued a statement saying that the man arrested "has nothing to do with the case in question".

MALAYSIA

Court upholds guilty verdict against Najib

Former prime minister Najib Razak failed in his bid on Wednesday to overturn the guilty verdict in a case related to SRC International, a former unit of the state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad. Judge Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, who is leading a three-member Court of Appeal bench, delivered the verdict affirming the findings of the High Court in July last year. Najib, 68, has been sentenced to 12 years in jail and a 210 million ringgit ($49.7 million) fine for abuse of power.

JAPAN

5.0-magnitude quake strikes off Fukushima

An earthquake with a 5.0 magnitude struck off Fukushima Prefecture on Wednesday, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The temblor occurred at 4:22 pm local time at a depth of 50 kilometers, with its epicenter at a latitude of 37.7 degrees north and a longitude of 141.6 degrees east. The quake logged 3 in some parts of the prefecture on the Japanese seismic intensity scale which peaks at 7. No tsunami warning has been issued so far.

UNITED STATES

Napoleon's sword, pistols sold for $2.9m

The dress sword carried by Napoleon Bonaparte when he staged a coup in 1799 and five of his firearms were sold at an auction for nearly $2.9 million, announced auctioneers on Tuesday. The lot, which was put up for sale by the Illinois-based Rock Island Auction Company, was sold on Friday via phone to a buyer who has remained anonymous, said company president Kevin Hogan. With the $2.87 million sale, "the buyer of the Napoleon Garniture is taking home a very rare piece of history," Hogan said.

Xinhua - Agencies