The Turkish Daily Sabah newspaper has published the audio transcripts of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year.
The audio recordings were acquired by Turkey's national intelligence agency and made public by the newspaper on Monday.
The shocking recordings reveal the detailed exchanges between the Saudi journalist and a hit squad that were captured by hidden microphones inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Al Jazeera reported quoting the Turkish newspaper.
Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist living in the United States, was killed on October 2, 2018 at the consulate, where he had gone to collect documents for his upcoming wedding.
In the recordings, Khashoggi can be heard entering the consulate and being greeted by a known person before being pulled into a room, Al Jazeera quoted the Daily Sabah.
"Please sit. We have to take you back [to Riyadh]," Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, a senior Saudi intelligence officer and the bodyguard of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is heard saying.
"There is an order from Interpol. Interpol demanded you be returned. We are here to take you," Mutreb is quoted as saying.
To this, the Saudi journalist responds: "There are no lawsuits against me. My fiancée is waiting outside for me."
In the last minutes before he was murdered, the men were recorded ordering Khashoggi to write a message for his son. In the message, he was ordered to tell his son not to be concerned if he could not contact his father.
When Khashoggi refused the order, Mutreb was quoted as saying: "Write it, Mr Jamal. Hurry up. Help us so we can help you, because in the end we will take you back to Saudi Arabia. And if you don't help us, you know what will happen eventually."
Later, the men drugged him, and he was heard saying: "I have asthma. Do not do it, you will suffocate me," moments before he lost consciousness.
Sounds of struggles are heard in the audio.
The dismembering of the journalist's body around 1:39pm lasted 30 minutes, quoted Al Jazeera.
His body parts are yet to be recovered.
Turkey has called Khashoggi's killing "premeditated murder" orchestrated by the Saudi government. US intelligence agencies believe Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the operation to kill Khashoggi.
Riyadh denies the prince had any involvement in the murder.