Gruesome details are emerging as Turkey claims to have a recording of Jamal Khashoggi’s final moments before he was murdered.

His killers were waiting when Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago. They severed his fingers and later beheaded and dismembered him, according to details from audio recordings described by a senior Turkish official today.

Khashoggi was dead within minutes, and within two hours the killers were gone, the recordings suggested.

The leaking of such details, on the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was visiting Turkey, reflected an escalation of pressure by the Turkish government on Saudi Arabia and the United States for answers on the fate of Khashoggi, a prominent dissident journalist who wrote for The Washington Post.

Fifteen days after he entered the consulate in Istanbul and was never seen coming out, the Saudis have yet to give an explanation.

Top Saudi officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance — denials that they repeated to Pompeo when he visited Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

The recordings tell a very different story.

A team of 15 Saudi agents, some with ties to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was waiting for Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate the moment he arrived, at about 1:15 p.m. on Oct. 2.

After he was shown into the office of the Saudi consul, Mohammad al-Otaibi, the agents seized Khashoggi almost immediately and began to beat and torture him, eventually cutting off his fingers, the senior Turkish official said.

There were screams heard throughout the consulate.

Speaking to reporters at the White House today, President Trump, who has defended Saudi Arabia, even floating the idea that it was “rogue killers,” said the administration had requested access to recorded evidence from the Turkish authorities “if it exists” and that it “probably does.”

Trump has denied having personal financial interests in Saudi Arabia, but that is not true.