Khashoggi was drugged before being dismembered

WASHINGTON: Slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi was offered a cup of tea at the Saudi embassy before he was drugged and dismembered at a Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul, according to new information from officials.

An anonymous Western intelligence official told the Washington Post, where Khashoggi was a columnist, that secret recordings captured the Saudi murder squad discussing their plans in detail.

The Post reported that Khashoggi seems to have believed that he was going tobe drugged and abducted but that “the Saudi team brought a syringe packed with enough sedative to be lethal.”

The 59-year-old journalist was reportedly offered tea but “replied yes with an edge in his voice that made it clear that he sensed that this ritual act of politeness presaged something sinister”.

They added: The rest of the recording suggests there was no intent to take Khashoggi alive, multiple officials said. It captures the writer gasping for air in a physical struggle that gives way to silence. The horror resumes with the sound of an electric motor, presumably a saw that a special member of the team used to dismember Khashoggi’s body. Turkey is working with other countries to carry the investigation into Khashoggi’s to the United Nations, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday.