WASHINGTON, December 24 (Sputnik)
SAUDI COURT RULES IN KHASHOGGI CASE
* A Saudi court on Monday sentenced five people to death and sentenced to prison another three for a total of 24 years for their involvement in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
* The court cleared three top officials of wrongdoing, including former top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - Saud al-Qahtani, former deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri and Saudi Consul General in Istanbul Mohammed al-Otaibi.
* Khashoggi's elder son said he has full trust in the Saudi judiciary after the court sentenced five people to death for killing his father.
* The German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency announced on Monday that it had authorized Nord Stream 2 pipe laying in German waters during the winter.
* The German government will decide how to react to the sanctions the United States imposed on companies working on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline at a later date, German Deputy Government Spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said.
* German company Uniper, a financial partner of the Nord Stream 2, has told Sputnik that it believes that the pipeline construction will be completed quickly despite the United States' sanctions, as it is important for Europe.
GREECE SUSPENDS VINNIK'S EXTRADITION TO US
* The highest administrative court in Greece has suspended the implementation of a decision by the Justice Ministry to extradite Russian national Alexander Vinnik to the United States via France, lawyer Zoe Konstantopoulou told reporters on Monday.
* Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Greek Justice Ministry's decision was "sly," "unacceptable" and made without duly considering the information Russia had presented concerning the case.
* The Syrian military on Monday entered the town of Jarjanaz in the province of Idlib, a Sputnik correspondent confirmed following a report by the al-Watan newspaper that the Syrian military cleared militants from Jarjanaz.
* Syrian President Bashar Assad has decided to give Russian companies a priority regarding work in the country due to Russia's assistance in the fight against terrorism, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said.
* prices for Russian gas transit through Ukraine will remain unchanged for the following five years, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said Monday.
* Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that analyzing the Stockholm arbitration's rulings on the gas dispute with Ukraine was pointless, while it was necessary to implement the rulings even despite the fact that politics had played a certain role.
* Ukraine was the main route for the transit of Russian gas to the European Union in the third quarter of 2019, covering 43 percent of the entire gas flow from Russian, according to the report by the European Commission.
