BRUTAL

Jamal Khashoggi’s Last Words Were ‘I Can’t Breathe’: CNN

According to a transcript of the alleged murder reviewed by an unidentified source.

In the minutes before he was murdered inside Istanbul’s Saudi consulate, Jamal Khashoggi’s last words were “I can’t breathe,” according to a source cited in a Sunday report from CNN. After those words, CNN added, the transcript recorded unintelligible screams and gasps. The unidentified source, who reportedly reviewed a transcript of the audio recording of Khashoggi’s death, claims the transcript also shows that the killing was premeditated—not, as the Saudi government previously said, an accident. The country’s attorney general has since conceded that the murder was planned, but it remains unclear how many Saudi officials knew of the plan. Two of the voices reportedly heard in the recording have been identified by CNN's source as Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, an intelligence official who works for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Dr. Salah Muhammad al-Tubaiqi, a forensic doctor from Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry. In the audio recording, Mutreb can reportedly be heard making a phone call to an unknown person and saying, “Tell yours, the thing is done, it's done.” The recipient of that call is widely assumed among intelligence officials to be Saud al-Qahtani, who CNN describes as the crown prince’s “closest aide.” The source told CNN that there’s nothing in the transcript that directly implicates the crown prince, however.

SHIFTING STORIES

Saudi Arabia Admits Jamal Khashoggi’s Murder Was Planned