Mubasher: Siemens’ CEO Joe Kaeser said on Monday he would not attend the upcoming “Davos in the Desert” summit in Saudi Arabia, after Riyadh admitted that the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in Istanbul.

 “Siemens is a reliable and committed partner of the kingdom and its VISION 2030, [but] for now, truth needs to be found out and justice applied,” Kaeser said in a statement posted on his LinkedIn account.

“Sometimes, situations develop in such a way that no one can win, where every option is wrong […] and the so-called Khashoggi crisis, the death of Jamal Khashoggi, is such a situation.”

The decision was not meant as a condemnation of the Saudi population or a value judgement on the German engineering giant’s 2,000 employees in Saudi Arabia or other partners like Saudi Aramco, SABIC and SEC, Kaeser said.

Siemens was one of the last companies to decide to withdraw from the Future Investment Initiative conference which is due to be held from 23 to 25 October in Riyadh after Saudi Arabia sought to cover up Khashoggi’s death before admitting that he was killed amid international outcry.

On Sunday, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al Jubeir described the murder of Khashoggi as a “huge and grave mistake.”

“This was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had,” al Jubeir said.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist and a Saudi citizen, disappeared three weeks ago after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents for an upcoming marriage.

Over the past days, several business titans reneged on the conference. Last week, ABB’s CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer said he would also withdraw from the event, following others including Airbus defence chief executive Dirk Hoke and Deutsche Bank’s head Christian Sewing.

In addition, top finance and trade officials from various Western governments would also shun the upcoming conference because of the journalist’s murder.