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REUTERS
ISTANBUL
PRESIDENT Tayyip Erdogan said recordings related to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, which Turkey has shared with Western allies, are"appalling" and shocked a Saudi intelligence officer who listened to them, Turkish media reported on Tuesday.
Khashoggi, a critic of de facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed in Saudi Arabia's Istanbul consulate on October 2 in a hit which Erdogan says was ordered at the"highest levels" of the Saudi government.
Six weeks after Khashoggi's death, Turkey is trying to keep up pressure on Prince Mohammed and has released a stream of evidence that undermined Riyadh's early denials of involvement.
Prince Mohammed won support on Tuesday from US National Security Adviser John Bolton, who said he did not think recordings of the killing shared by Turkey implicated the young crown prince.
Erdogan told reporters on his plane returning from a weekend visit to France that he discussed the Saudi journalist's killing with the US, French and German laders there, adding that Turkey had played the recording to at least six countries.
"The recordings are really appalling. Indeed when the Saudi intelligence officer listened to the recordings he was so shocked he said: 'This one must have taken heroin, only someone who takes heroin would do this'," he added.
Khashoggi's murder has provoked global outrage but little concrete action by major powers against Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter and a strong proponent of US policy to contain Iranian influence across the Middle East.
Bolton said he did not think that people who heard the recordings concluded that the crown prince was linked to the killing."And certainly that is not the position of the Saudi government," he said in Singapore.
