It has been over 10 days since Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi went missing during a visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. And after a massive search and numerous speculations, the truth behind the disappearance is yet to be uncovered. Several reports have also hinted that the journalist could have been killed.
It is now being said that Khashoggi himself may have recorded his death, thanks to the Apple Watch he was wearing. According to Turkish newspaper Sabah, the scribe had turned on the recording function on his watch before he entered the Saudi consulate, and what went down at the consulate was recorded and sent to his phone and to iCloud.
The newspaper said that the conversation of the men involved was recorded and so were the moments of his "interrogation, torture and killing." The men then reportedly noticed that the watch was recording and tried to unlock it with several passwords. When they failed, they are said to have used Khashoggi's fingerprint to unlock the watch and delete the recordings.
However, they were reportedly able to delete only a few files, and the rest had already been sent to Khashoggi's phone, which he left with his fiancée waiting outside the consulate. Investigators have now found the recordings on Khashoggi's phone, reported Sabah.
On the contrary, Apple doesn't list fingerprint verification as a feature on the Watch and a company representative also confirmed to CNN that the Apple Watch doesn't come with the fingerprint feature.
What the Turkish government says of Khashoggi's disappearance
The Turkish government told the US officials that it has got recordings, which prove that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate building. It said that the recordings show that the journalist was detained at the consulate, where Saudi men killed him and dismembered his body.
"The voice recording from inside the embassy lays out what happened to Jamal after he entered," a source, with knowledge of the recording, told the Washington Post. "You can hear his voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic. You can hear how he was interrogated, tortured and then murdered."
Another source added that the men could be heard beating Khashoggi.
Turkish officials had earlier said that a 15-member team was sent "from Saudi Arabia. It was a pre-planned murder." The Turkish officials spoke to the Post on the condition of anonymity and provided no evidence of the murder or how they came to this conclusion.
What Saudi Arabia says
Saudi Arabia has denied these reports and said that Khashoggi had left the consulate minutes after arriving and that his whereabouts weren't known to anyone. As proof, the Saudi consul-general in Istanbul had even allowed a few Reuters reporters to tour the premises of the consulate.
However, the scribe's fiancée has clearly said that she did not see him come out of the consulate building.
Saudi Arabia Interior Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Naif bin Abdulaziz also said that the reports claiming the Saudi government ordered the killing of Khashoggi were misleading.
As per a statement in the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA), Abdulaziz labeled these reports "lies and baseless allegations against the government of the Kingdom."
