'Give me headphones and coffee and I'll chop his body up': Khashoggi's murderer

More harrowing recordings of the moment Khashoggi was murdered have been released by the Turkish media.

3 min read

09 September, 2019

Jamal Khashoggi was murdered last year [Getty]

A Turkish newspaper has released new recordings detailing the moments running up to the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, providing yet more evidence that top-level officials had plotted his vicious murder.

The Daily Sabah released a transcript of a voice recording building up to Khashoggi’s murder, where his killers discussed how they should deal with the corpse.

Just 12 minutes before Khashoggi entered the building on October 2 last year, Saudi intelligence officer Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb was discussing what to do with his body after the murder with head of the Saudi Scientific Council of Forensics Salah Mohammed Tubaigy and a forensic scientist.

“Is it possible to put the body in a bag?", Mutreb asked Tubaigy at 1:02pm.

“No, it is too heavy and too long. I have worked continuously in handling the bodies. I know how to cut it well. I have never worked on a living body, but I can handle it easily”, Tubaigy replied, noting he usually dons headphones and drinks coffee prior to dismembering corpses.

“After I tear up his body, I’ll wrap the parts in a bag, put it in suitcases and take it out.”

Just before Khashoggi’s arrival, Mutreb asked if “the sacrificial animal has yet arrived”. At 1:14pm, a member of the execution team informed the Saudi official that Khashoggi had arrived in the embassy.

‘Stop, you’re strangling me’

When Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate, by the sound of the conversation, it was thought he knew the person who had greeted him into the building.

Upon meeting Mutreb, he was told he would be taken back to Riyadh under the request of the Saudi international crime police, to which Khashoggi refused, adding that his fiancé was waiting for him outside and there is no case against him.

During the interrogation, a member of the execution team repeatedly said “let’s cut it short.”

By 1:22pm, Mutreb asked Khashoggi if he had a mobile phone on him, demanding he texts his son a message along the lines of “I'm in Istanbul. If you do not reach me, do not worry.”

Khashoggi refused, saying he can’t be treated like this at an embassy.

He then noticed a towel, and asked if the Saudi intelligence had any plans of drugging him.

“We’ll put you to sleep”, Tubaigy replied, before attempting to give him the medicine. Khashoggi then begged them not to close his mouth because he’s asthmatic.

“I have asthma. Please, you’ll strangle me”, he said. Those were his last coherent words before he died.

At 1:39pm the sounds of the saw dismembering him was heard in the recordings, in a process that took half an hour.