Jamal Khashoggi’s Murder: 7 Minutes of Sawing while Listening to Music!

Jamal Khashoggi’s Murder: 7 Minutes of Sawing while Listening to Music!

7 Minutes It took seven minutes for Jamal Khashoggi to die, a Turkish source who has listened in full to an audio recording of the Saudi journalist’s last moments told Middle East Eye.

Khashoggi was dragged from the Consul General’s office at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and onto the table of his study next door, the Turkish source said.

Horrendous screams were then heard by a witness downstairs, the source said.

“The consul himself was taken out of the room. There was no attempt to interrogate him. They had come to kill him,” the source told MEE.

The screaming stopped when Khashoggi – who was last seen entering the Saudi consulate on 2 October – was injected with an as yet unknown substance.

Salah Muhammad al-Tubaigy, who has been identified as the head of forensic evidence in the Saudi general security department, was one of the 15-member squad who arrived in Ankara earlier that day on a private jet.

Tubaigy began to cut Khashoggi’s body up on a table in the study while he was still alive, the Turkish source said.

The killing took seven minutes, the source said.

As he started to dismember the body, Tubaigy put on earphones and listened to music. He advised other members of the squad to do the same.

“When I do this job, I listen to music. You should do [that] too,” Tubaigy was recorded as saying, the source told MEE.

A three-minute version of the audio tape has been given to Turkish newspaper Sabah, but they have yet to release it.

A Turkish source told the New York Times that Tubaigy was equipped with a bone saw. He is listed as the president of the Saudi Fellowship of Forensic Pathology and a member of the Saudi Association for Forensic Pathology.

In 2014, London-based Saudi newspaper Asharaq al-Awsat interviewed Tubaigy about a mobile clinic that allows coroners to perform autopsies in seven minutes to determine the cause of death of Hajj pilgrims.

The newspaper reported that the mobile clinic was partly designed by Tubaigy and could be used in “security cases that requires pathologist intervention to perform an autopsy or examine a body at the place of a crime”.

These are the first details to emerge of the Saudi journalist’s killing. Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October to retrieve paperwork.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

Khashoggi Murdered, Cut into Pieces

Local Editor

Not only was he murdered but also cut into pieces.

A Turkish official revealed in remarks to CNN Tuesday that the body of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was reportedly cut into pieces after he was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Just hours before, the Associated Press citing a high-level Turkish official reported that police had identified “certain evidence” during their hours-long search of the consulate suggesting that the journalist was in fact killed there.

No further evidence was provided by the official who was unauthorized to speak publicly.

Turkish police, prosecutors and anti-terror experts searched the Saudi embassy premises on Monday after Riyadh gave the green-light amid global uproar over Khashoggi’s disappearance since October 2.

The same team were due to search the residence of al-Otaibi later on Tuesday.

Following the search, US President Donald Trump tweeted: “just spoke with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia who totally denied any knowledge of what took place in their Turkish Consulate.”

He “told me that he has already started, and will rapidly expand, a full and complete investigation into this matter. Answers will be forthcoming shortly.”

Earlier in the day the Saudi Arabia’s consul to Istanbul left the Turkish city bound for Riyadh on a scheduled flight.

Consul general Mohammed al-Otaibi took off for Riyadh on a 1400 GMT flight from Istanbul, the Haber-Turk newspaper reported on its website. The state-run Anadolu news agency also reported he had left Turkey.

The website of Ataturk International Airport showed a flight of flag-carrier Saudia took off for Riyadh at 1400 GMT and other Turkish media reports indicated he had taken this flight.

“We did not send him out. He left Turkey of his own accord,” CNN-Turk cited a Turkish foreign ministry source as saying. The consul used the VIP exit at the airport, Haber-Turk said.

The search comes as some US media said Saudi Arabia is preparing a report that admits Khashogghi died during an interrogation operation that went awry.

The kingdom has until now insisted the journalist left the consulate safely and initially dispelled the accusations as “baseless.”

Also on Tuesday, US top diplomat Mike Pompeo met with Saudi King Salman and the crown prince in a bid to defuse the crisis.

“We are strong and old allies. We face our challenges together,” the crown prince said as he warmly welcomed Pompeo at the palace. The two men were also due to have dinner together later Tuesday.

“The secretary and the foreign minister agreed on the importance of a thorough, transparent, and timely investigation,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said later.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

NYT: Suspects in Khashoggi’s Murder Linked to MBS

Local Editor

The New York Times reported Tuesday that a suspect identified by Turkey in the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a frequent companion of the kingdom’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Three other suspects are linked to Prince Mohammed’s security detail and a fifth is a high-level forensic doctor, the Times said.

The account could raise doubt about US President Donald Trump’s claim – after Saudi King Salman strongly denied to him any knowledge of what happened – that “rogue killers” might have been responsible for Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Khashoggi, a Saudi national who contributed to The Washington Post and criticized policies of Salman’s son Crown Prince Mohammed, has not been seen since October 2, when he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain official documents for his upcoming marriage.

Turkish government sources have said police believe the journalist was killed by a special team of 15 Saudi officials sent to Istanbul especially for the task.

The Times said it confirmed that at least nine of the 15 worked for the Saudi security services, military or other government ministries.

The newspaper said it gathered more information about the suspects through facial recognition software, a database of Saudi cellphone numbers, leaked Saudi government documents, witnesses and media.

Who are the suspects?

One suspect, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, was a diplomat assigned to the Saudi embassy in London in 2007, it said, citing a British diplomatic roster.

Mutreb, perhaps a bodyguard, has been photographed emerging from planes with Prince Mohammed on recent trips to Madrid and Paris, the newspaper reported.

It added that Mutreb was also photographed standing guard during Prince Mohammed’s visits in the United States to Houston, Boston and the United Nations.

The Times said three other suspects are Abdulaziz Mohammed al-Hawsawi — a member of the security team that travels with Prince Mohammed — Thaar Ghaleb al-Harbi, and Muhammed Saad Alzahrani.

Harbi and Alzahrani have the same names as two people who have been identified as members of the Saudi Royal Guard, the Times said.

The fifth suspect is an autopsy expert, Salah al-Tubaigy, who the Times said identified himself on his Twitter account as the head of the Saudi Scientific Council of Forensics.

He also held high positions in the Interior Ministry and the kingdom’s top medical school, the report said.

On Monday, CNN cited two sources as saying the Saudis are preparing a report that Khashoggi’s death resulted from a botched interrogation, while The Wall Street Journal said the kingdom was weighing whether to say that rogue operatives killed Khashoggi by mistake.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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