Report Says Turkey Obtains Khashoggi’s Murder Recordings

Local Editor

Turkey obtained recordings indicating that prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was tortured and killed at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul.

According to a Turkish newspaper, the recordings were made on Khashoggi’s Apple Watch which synced with his iPhone being carried outside the consulate by his fiancée.

"The moments when Khashoggi was interrogated, tortured and murdered were recorded in the Apple Watch's memory," the pro-government Sabah daily reported. 

Earlier, senior Turkish officials were quoted as saying that Khashoggi was wearing a black Apple watch when he entered the consulate and that it was connected to a mobile phone he left outside.

Sabah cited "reliable sources in a special intelligence department" as saying that Khashoggi is believed to have turned on the recording feature on the phone before entering the consulate.

According to the paper, Saudi intelligence agents realized after the killing that the phone was recording and they used Khashoggi finger print to unlock it, deleting some files but not all of them.

The recordings were subsequently found on his phone, the paper added.

On Thursday, a Saudi delegation including senior royal Prince Khaled al-Faisal arrived in Turkey on the two sides agreed to form a joint working group at Riyadh's initiative to investigate the case.

According to Turkish sources, the initial assessment of the police is that Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of the Saudi regime, has been deliberately killed inside the consulate.

Former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Robert Jordan told CBS News Friday he was "95 percent certain" that Saudi Arabia killed Khashoggi.

News of his disappearance broke out after his Turkish fiancée, who was waiting outside the diplomatic building, called the police.

The Washington Post, to which Khashoggi contributed as a columnist, said the Turkish government told US officials it had audio and video recordings showing how Khashoggi was "interrogated, tortured and then murdered" by a 15-member Saudi security team inside the consulate before his body was dismembered.

The suspected assassins made a mysterious one-day trip from Riyadh to Istanbul the day Khashoggi vanished at the consulate.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team