Turkish officials have leaked gory details of what they claim the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The dissident journalist was killed minutes after he arrived at the building to pick up marriage paperwork on Oct 2, according to US and Turkish media reports of what the officials say are audio recordings that prove he was beaten and drugged, then brutally killed and dismembered.
The Wall Street Journal, citing Turkish official who had heard the recording, said Khashoggi was allegedly killed and dismembered in the office of the Saudi consul general Mohammad al-Otaibi, who was in the room at the time. A voice on the recording can be heard inviting him to leave, the report said.
Forensics expert Salah Muhammad al-Tubaigy is reportedly heard putting on headphones to listen to music as he begins to dismember the body, and encouraging other people in the room to do the same.
According to Middle East Eye, Khashoggi was dragged from the office to Otaibi’s study next door, where Tubaigy began cutting up his body on a table while he was still alive.
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, within the confines of Ankara’s Esenboga, a day after Erdoğan had said police had found freshly painted walls and “toxic” substances during a search of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where Khashoggi was last seen alive two week, reports The Guardian.
On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that four of the men identified by Turkish media as part of a 15-man hit squad sent from Riyadh to silence Khashoggi were members of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman’s personal security detail. Another, the forensics doctor al-Tubaigy, holds a senior position in the Saudi interior ministry.
The suspects’ direct links to the Saudi establishment weakens the suggestion made by US President Donald Trump that the hit could have been carried out by “rogue killers” in an unauthorised operation.
Investigators believe Khashoggi’s body was then taken to the consul general’s house nearby, where it was disposed of.
Police set up barricades outside the consul general’s residence on Tuesday evening in order to carry out a planned search of the premises, but Turkey is waiting for a joint agreement with the Saudis to search the residence. Under the Vienna convention, diplomatic missions are considered foreign soil.
The consul general himself, who has not been seen in public since the scandal erupted, left Turkey on a commercial flight to Riyadh hours before his house became part of the criminal investigation.
A search of the house and some diplomatic vehicles was planned for Wednesday evening, as well as a second sweep of the consulate premises.
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