Saudis reject claims crown prince ordered Khashoggi's death
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister issues statement saying allegations against Mohammed bin Salman have 'no basis in truth'; Benjamin Hall reports from London.
A Saudi autopsy expert who was part of a hit team that killed Jamal Khashoggi used forensic know-how — along with syringes and scalpels — to dismember the journalist body, according to a report that provides new details about the gruesome procedure.
Dr. Salah al-Tubaigy, head of the Saudi Scientific Council of Forensics, handled the implements that the 15-member kill squad brought into Istanbul, where they ambushed Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate on Oct. 2, according to Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News.
“Khashoggi’s body was undressed. Tubaigy drew blood from his veins and let it flow into the bathroom sink. It was also Tubaigy who dismembered the body,” the outlet reported, citing the Daily Sabah.
“Tubaigy was trained in forensics at the University of Glasgow, and a short while ago he had introduced his own project at a seminar in Australia, which was about a mobile autopsy device,” the newspaper added.
The Daily Sabah has reported that an audio recording captured Khashoggi’s murderafter the Saudis covered the floor of Saudi Consul Mohammed al-Otaibi’s office with plastic sheets before cutting up his body.
The Saudi hit team also used coagulants to stop the bleeding during the dismemberment, according to Hurriyet.
The kingdom originally said Khashoggi — a vocal critic of the government — left the consulate alive. But the Saudi government later admitted that he was strangled after a fistfight.
By late October, Saudi Arabia’s attorney general said he believed Khashoggi’s killing was “premeditated.”
Tubaigy, who also works for the Saudi Interior Ministry, was identified by an anonymous source as telling others in his team to put on headphones while he chopped up the body.
“When I do this job, I listen to music,” he reportedly said.
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