Audio recording emerges showing Arab journalist tortured and beheaded

Journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Photo:AP.

SheetYeni SafakTürkiye's state-run news agency reported today that audio recordings show that after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, journalist Jamal Khashoggi was tortured by a group of men who cut off his fingers.

"Do this outside, you are getting me into trouble," the Saudi Consul General in Istanbul Mohammed al-Otaibi is heard saying in the recording. In another recording, an unidentified person tells Otaibi: "If you want to return to Saudi Arabia alive, keep quiet."

Khashoggi was later beheaded by the group, Yeni Safak claimed. The Turkish newspaper did not say how the recordings were made or how they obtained the evidence.

The Washington Post previously quoted unnamed US and Turkish officials as saying that there were audio and video recordings proving Khashoggi was killed in the consulate and dismembered. However, this is the first time Turkish media has claimed to possess such recordings.

Sabah newspaper reported last weekend that Khashoggi's Apple Watch recorded the entire process of the journalist's interrogation, torture and murder, but some experts say the watch is not capable of recording such events.

Consul General Otaibi returned to Saudi Arabia on October 16, before a joint investigation team from Ankara and Riyadh searched the consulate. A senior Turkish official said police had found “strong evidence” that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered there.

Khashoggi, a journalist who frequently criticized Saudi Arabia's foreign policy and crackdown on dissent, disappeared on October 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents to marry his Turkish girlfriend. Investigators in Ankara believe he was murdered by a team of 15 agents and "dismembered." Riyadh has denied the allegations, calling them "baseless" speculation.