This guys is a Saudi citizen, right? When you say “very, very bad” punishment is needed are you prepared to go as far as, say, war? Over a foreign journalist? We didn’t do that for Daniel Pearl who was a US citizen.
Khashoggi was anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Jew, anti-Christian and anti-freedom. I don’t condone his killing but he played in a rough neighborhood and picked the wrong gang to join in the game of life.
Daniel Pearl was killed by terrorists, against whom the US was already at war. Kashoggi was in Istanbul working for an American news organization. No, it would not be right to go to war over that. But sanctions of some sort have been imposed on Russia for poisoning a defector and his daughter in England. Sanctions can be imposed on the KSA for murdering a journalist in Instanbul.
I remember and mourn Daniel Pearl, too. But there was a different Sheriff in town then. New Sheriff, new reaction. This Sheriff doesn’t bow down to Saudi royalty.