Turkish FM Çavuşoğlu calls recording of Khashoggi killing 'disgusting'

Turkey's top diplomat for the first time described grisly details from audio tapes purportedly of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi's murder in Istanbul last month, in an interview with a German newspaper.

A forensics doctor is "instructing the others - they should listen to music while he dismembers the body," Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu tells Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an interview published on Tuesday.

"You can tell he is enjoying it," Çavuşoğlu said, adding that "he likes to cut up people. It is disgusting."

Çavuşoğlu for the first time confirmed some of the content of the tapes, which have so far only been leaked by Turkish media.

He said he listened to the tapes of the killing in Saudi Arabia's consulate on October 2, but said the Turkish investigators would not divulge how they got the audio.

"He was killed within seven minutes. It was a premeditated murder," Çavuşoğlu said.

On November 15, Riyadh's chief prosecutor said Khashoggi was killed by the head of a hit squad after having failed to convince him to return to Saudi Arabia.

"The crime included a fight and injecting the citizen [Khashoggi] with a drug overdose that led to his death," the prosecution spokesman said.

"They did not decide to kill him after they could not persuade him to return," Çavuşoğlu said.

Turkey has called for an international investigation into the murder of the journalist, which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has previously said came from "the highest levels of the Saudi government."

Khashoggi's remains have not yet been located.