Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi was butchered alive during an excruciating seven-minute execution inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a source has claimed.
The anonymous source claims to have heard an audio recording of Mr Khashoggi’s horrifying final moments, captured on the journalist’s own Apple Watch, shortly after he entered he consulate on October 2.
The tape reveals Mr Khashoggi was dragged from the Saudi Consul General’s office to a table in a next-door study, where he was surgically dismembered, Middle East Eye reports.
The audio recording is said to have captured the missing journalist’s dying screams, before he was ‘injected with an unknown drug’ and fell silent.
‘There was no attempt to interrogate him. They had come to kill him,’ the source said.
The source also claimed that Khashoggi’s screams had been heard by witnesses downstairs as he was cut into pieces on the desk.
This follows reports yesterday that local police have found ‘certain evidence’ that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate, and Turkish officials have referenced an audio recording.
They said that this evidence had been shared with several other countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Investigators have reportedly been ‘looking into toxic materials’ at the alleged crime scene following a nine-hour overnight search which ended in the early hours of Tuesday.
As new information linking the Saudis to Khashoggi’s suspected murder emerged, the Saudi Consul General Mohammad al-Otaibi suddenly left Turkey on a commercial flight – just hours before his residence was searched by police.
The disappearance of Khashoggi has put Saudi Arabia’s international relations in the spotlight, in particular its trade with the U.S.
President Trump said Tuesday that he has spoken to the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the kingdom continues to steadfastly deny any involvement in Khashoggi’s suspected murder.
Taking to Twitter, Trump said the Crown Prince, known by his initials MbS, ‘totally denied’ knowledge of the journalist’s disappearance in a Tuesday afternoon phone call which followed a dinner between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Saudi leader in Riyadh.
Speaking to Fox Business shortly before to phone conversation with the Saudi royal, Trump said he was waiting to hear from the Crown Prince to pass judgement, but admitted that ‘If they knew about it, that would be bad.’
Pompeo travelled to Riyadh yesterday to meet with King Salman and the Crown Prince to try to defuse the crisis sparked by Khashoggi’s disappearance and the Saudis’ reluctance to address what happened to him at the consulate.
The Crown Prince told Pompeo that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia ‘are strong and old allies. We face our challenges together,’ before sitting down for talks.
Today, Pompeo is due to fly to Turkey to hold talks with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.
On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump speculated ‘rogue killers’ were to blame after revealing the Saudi king denied any murder plot during a phone conversation between the pair last night.
Speaking to reporters in the White House, Trump said King Salman’s denial ‘could not have been stronger.’
‘He said it very strongly,’ Trump said when pressed to say whether he believed the Saudi king.
He added: ‘It sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. Who knows?’
President Trump has previously said he does not want to halt a proposed $110 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia – as some in Congress have suggested – because it would harm the US economically.
However, on Monday, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow warned that the United States would ‘take stern action with the Saudis if necessary.’
There have been several reports this week that Saudi Arabia is preparing to admit that Khashoggi died in the consulate, but no such admittance has yet appeared.
Previously, sources in British intelligence have been quoted by Reuters as saying they believe there had been an attempt to drug Khashoggi inside the consulate that culminated in an overdose.
Earlier on Tuesday, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet called for the immediate and ‘absolute’ lifting of diplomatic immunity enjoyed by any officials or premises in the Khashoggi investigation.
Ms Bachelet said the ‘inviolability or immunity’ of people or premises granted under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations ‘should be waived immediately.’
She said Tuesday the ‘onus is on the Saudi authorities’ to reveal what happened, and insisted ‘no further obstacles’ should be placed in the way of a quick, thorough, impartial and transparent investigation.
Bachelet stopped short of calling for an international investigation.
Also on Tuesday, Google and a number of banks, including HSBC, became the latest companies to boycott a business conference in Saudi Arabia next week.
Google said in a statement that Google Cloud Chief Executive Diane Greene would not attend the Future Investment Initiative Summit starting in Riyadh on Tuesday.
This was followed by statements from HSBC, Standard Chartered and Credit Suisse which said their chief executives will no longer be travelling to Riyadh for the conference.
Many American companies, including Uber, Viacom and Ford, have pulled out of the three-day conference, known as Davos in the Desert.
Britain’s trade secretary Liam Fox and US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin are still due to attend.
A Turkish official yesterday claimed the consulate walls have been repainted since the alleged murder and said the Turks don’t trust the Saudis not to obfuscate the investigation, reported the Middle Eastern Eye.
Khashoggi, who was notoriously critical of Saudi Arabia’s new Crown Prince, entered the consulate on 2 October to get documents to marry his Turkish fiancee – but has not been seen since.
Turkish officials have said they fear a Saudi hit team killed and dismembered Khashoggi.
Saudi Arabia has called such allegations ‘baseless’ but has not proved the writer ever left the consulate.
Saudi Arabia said Monday that the Crown Prince has ordered an internal investigation of the disappearance, and an released a statement thanking Turkey for the co-operation in which they praised President Erdogan ‘appreciating the fraternal, distinguished, historical and close relations between the two countries’.
While Turkey and the kingdom differ on political issues, Saudi investments are a crucial lifeline for Ankara amid trouble with its national currency, the Turkish lira.
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