The last words Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last month were "I’m suffocating," head of investigations at Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah Nazif Karaman said.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Karaman said that Khashoggi was suffocated with a plastic bag and that his death took about seven minutes. He also recalled Khashoggi’s final words: "I’m suffocating. Take this bag off my head. I’m claustrophobic."
Karaman then claimed that the alleged group of 15 hitmen who, as Turkish officials suggested, travelled to Istanbul one day ahead of the incident to kill the Saudi journalist, spent 15 minutes dismembering his body, the Washington Time reported.
The Saudi journalist disappeared on 2 October after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to fetch documents he needed in order to remarry. After weeks of concerns that he could have been killed inside the building and searches of the consulate by Turkish police, the Saudi prosecutor-general confirmed his death.
In late October, Istanbul’s prosecutor said in a statement that Khashoggi’s corpse had been dismembered and destroyed after he was strangled to death inside the Saudi consular premises in what appeared to be a premeditated murder.
