What’s the worst way to possibly die?

It’s hard to imagine anything more sickening and barbaric than what is alleged to have happened to Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post.

He was apparently lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, where he was confronted by a 15-man hit squad that had flown in from Riyadh to murder him.

But not, it is claimed, quickly.

Jamal Khashoggi died in one of the worst ways imaginable. For seven long minutes he was tortured and hacked to pieces with a bone-saw while he was still alive. His body carted off in bags to be dissolved in acid

He was dragged from the consul-general’s office to the table of a study next door.

There, for seven long, agonising minutes, Khashoggi was reportedly tortured and hacked to pieces with a bone-saw while he was still alive.

He was decapitated and had his fingers cut off one by one.

Then, the severed remains of his torso were put in 15 plastic bags and removed, to be later dissolved in acid.

Khashoggi’s ‘horrendous’ screams of pain were so loud they were heard downstairs by a witness.

The chief executioner was allegedly ‘Dr Death’ Salah Muhammad al-Tubaigy, ‘head of forensic evidence’ for the Saudi general security department.

His official title is President of the Saudi Fellowship of Forensic Pathology and he’s a man who enjoys his work.

As Tubaigy began to dismember Khashoggi’s body, he apparently put on earphones and listened to music, advising other members of the squad to do the same.

'Forensic expert': The chief executioner was allegedly ‘Dr Death’ Salah Muhammad al-Tubaigy, ‘head of forensic evidence’ for the Saudi general security department. He’s a man who enjoys his work. As Tubaigy began to dismember Khashoggi’s body, he apparently put on earphones and listened to music, advising other members of the squad to do the same

‘When I do this job, I listen to music,’ he was recorded as saying. ‘You should do (that) too.’

Aftewards, cleaning crews were brought in to scrub and repaint the blood-stained crime scene.

The more we learn about this horrific murder, the more disgusting it gets.

But one thing is increasingly obvious: he wasn’t killed ‘accidentally’ during a botched interrogation, as Saudi sources are desperately trying to suggest.

The consulate witness who heard the screams was clear: ‘They came to kill him to kill him, not interrogate him.’

Of course they did.

A 15-man team of highly trained men including royal House of Saud bodyguards and intelligence officers weren’t sent from Saudi Arabia to Turkey to have a ‘little chat’ with Khashoggi.

They were sent to silence him – permanently.

And to do it in such a despicable and depraved manner that it would deter others from following his path.

And they would never have dared do this without the express knowledge and approval of Saudi Arabia’s new 33-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who likes to call himself ‘MBS’.

What had Khashoggi’s done to offend MBS?

Simple: he dared to tell the truth.

The 15-person execution squad would never have dared do this without the express knowledge and approval of Saudi Arabia’s new 33-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. What had Khashoggi’s done to offend MBS? Simple: he dared to tell the truth

Khashoggi, a former Saudi royal court insider and longtime journalist, was murdered because he had spoken out critically against MBS and his new regime.

In September, 2017, he wrote his first column for the Washington Post in which he revealed he was taking himself into self-imposed exile in the U.S. because of MBS’s rise to power.

Further columns over the next year heavily criticised the crown prince and the supposedly ‘reforming’ direction he was taking the country.

On September 28, 2018, Khashoggi attended the Saudi consulate in Istanbul seeking documents in order to get married to his fiancée Hatice Cengiz.

He was told to return on October 2.

So he did, unwittingly coming back to meet his depraved death - as Cengiz waited outside.

Khashoggi’s death, if it hadn’t blown into a global scandal, would have been just another minor piece of murderous messy business for MBS, a man who has displayed an astonishingly ruthless capacity for callous acts of barbarism.

Khashoggi’s death, if it hadn’t blown into a global scandal, would have been just another minor piece of murderous messy business for MBS. One man vanished while his fiancee sat waiting for him outside of the consulate

After all, it is he who has presided over the on-going and appalling Saudi-led war crimes in Yemen, costing more than 16,000 civilian deaths and widespread famine.

It is he who has allowed the extremist Wahhabi doctrine of Islam to gather steam, the one that drives ISIS and other Islamist terror groups.

It is he, according to yesterday’s The New Yorker, who sent a bullet in an envelope to persuade a land-registry official to help him seize some land.

And it is he who rounded up, imprisoned(in a five star hotel) and in some cases tortured over 500 other members of the Saudi royal family to blackmail them into paying multi-billion-dollar ransoms for their release.

Yet he’s somehow managed to draw a veil over all this murder and mayhem and con the smartest brains in the west into thinking he’s some kind of softer, gentler, reforming genius.

In fact, MBS is a duplicitous, dangerous hardline fraud – the kind of man who publicly pushed for women to drive whilst privately overseeing the arrest of women’s rights activists.

A few months ago, I was at my home in Los Angeles when MBS came to town.

It was quite the spectacle as the 33-year-old crown prince booked the entire 100-suite Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills for his week-long visit, at a reputed cost of over $1 million.

Oh, and just in case things got a little crowded, he also booked 40 more suites at the nearby L’Ermitage for another $250,000.

Such astonishing extravagance startled even Hollywood tycoons, and impressed them too.

‘MBS’ was treated with fawning deference by the biggest names in the movie business that queued up to meet, greet, wine and dine the young leader.

MBS is a duplicitous, dangerous hardline fraud – the kind of man who publicly pushed for women to drive whilst privately overseeing the arrest of women’s rights activists. When he visited Los Angeles, his astonishing extravagance startled even Hollywood tycoons, and impressed them too. ‘MBS’ was treated with fawning deference. Why? Money talks

Why?

Well the main reason was MBS’s decision to end Saudi’s 35-year ban on movie theaters last December, thus opening up a potentially huge new market for the film industry.

As with all things Saudi, money talked.

But not everyone felt quite so ecstatic about the crown prince’s presence.

Demonstrators from the feminist group Code Pink protested outside the offices of WME, the talent agency run by legendary Ari Emanuel in which MBS was planning to take a 10% stake.

‘He pretends to be a reformer when he’s really a war criminal,’ Jodie Evans, founder of Code Pink, told The Wrap.

She added that it was ‘disappointing’ after the #MeToo movement that Hollywood was cooing over the leader of the ‘the world’s most misogynistic, patriarchal and repressive regime.’

You think???

MBS had flown to LA from Silicon Valley where he met with equally starry-eyed tech giants like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, who now owns the Washington Post.

They were all tone deaf and blind to the reality of this monster - a reality that’s now dripping in Jamal Khashoggi’s blood.

Predictably, the same Hollywood and Silicon Valley moguls who queued up to lick MBS’s diamond-studded boots are now all running to the hills to distance themselves in a frantic attempt to stop their own brands being tainted by the Khashoggi scandal.

Perhaps the only thing more sickening than this sudden corporate U-turn and the pitifully inadequate Saudi denials of the murder itself, is the way America’s own leaders seem to be falling over themselves to support the cover-up.

President Trump tweeted that he’d spoken personally to MBS who assured him he knew nothing about it.

That’s alright then!

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was pictured joking and laughing with MBS in Saudi Arabia in one of the most repulsively ill-timed photocalls in living memory

And US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was pictured joking and laughing with MBS in Saudi Arabia in one of the most repulsively ill-timed photocalls in living memory.

Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner is also culpable for being the top MBS cheerleader inside the administration.

America’s historic reliance on Saudi Arabia for oil and arms deals, and more immediate self-interested need to support the Saudis in their raging Middle Eastern power struggle with the likes of Iran and Turkey, should not override its commitment to democracy and human rights.

It’s increasingly obvious that Mohammed bin Salman has the blood of Jamal Khashoggi’s sliced-up body all over his hands.

President Trump should stop protecting his medieval mate and make it crystal clear, in the most punitive way possible, that America won’t tolerate such diabolical torture and murder of journalists by its so-called ‘friends’.