Luggage carried by a 15-member Saudi team dispatched to Istanbul included scissors, defibrillators and syringes that may have been used against journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in the Saudi consulate, a pro-government Turkish daily has claimed.

X-ray images of the luggage were published in the Sabah newspaper as The New York Times reported that a member of the team at the consulate had told a superior by phone to “tell your boss”, suspected to be Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that the operation was accomplished.

Turkish media has published gruesome details of the murder of 59-year-old Khashoggi who according to a Turkish prosecutor was strangled and dismembered soon after he entered the Istanbul consulate on October 2 to obtain paperwork for his marriage to his Turkish fiancee.

After repeated denials, Saudi Arabia finally admitted Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and Riyadh critic, had been murdered at the mission in a “rogue” operation.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the 15-member Saudi team travelled from Riyadh to Istanbul to kill Khashoggi.

The luggage carried by the team was loaded into two planes that left for Riyadh on October 2, Sabah newspaper said.

The luggage contained 10 phones, five walkie-talkies, intercoms, two syringes, two defibrillators, a jamming device, staplers, and scissors, the paper reported.

It comes as the audio recording of the killing of Khashoggi is so “atrocious” that a Saudi intelligence official who heard it speculated that “only someone who took heroin” could carry it out, Turkey’s president was quoted as saying.

Speaking to journalists on board his plane while returning from World War I commemorations in Paris, Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said that Turkey had shared audio recordings relating to the killing with Saudi Arabia and other nations, including the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Canada.

“The recording is truly atrocious. In fact, when the Saudi intelligence officer listened to the recording he was so shocked that he said ‘this one probably took heroin. Only someone who took heroin would do it,”’ Erdogan was reported as saying in comments published in pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak.

Mr Erdogan did not elaborate on how and when the Saudi official heard the recording of the killing of the Saudi citizen.

Turkey says Khashoggi, who wrote for The Washington Post and often criticised the crown prince, was killed by a 15-member assassination squad sent from Riyadh. Ankara insists the orders for the killing came from the highest levels of the Saudi government, but not King Salman.

Turkey has said a 15-member Saudi “hit squad” strangled and dismembered Khashoggi at the consulate. Media reports have suggested that his body could have been chemically dissolved as it has not yet been found.

Mr Erdogan also said Turkey was “patiently” waiting for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to shed light on the killing at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last month.

The crown prince has come under scrutiny for having knowledge of the killing, which involved some members of his security entourage.

Pressing ahead with moves to maintain pressure on Saudi Arabia, Mr Erdogan said the crown prince had told Turkish envoys that he would shed light on the October 2 killing at the kingdom’s consulate and do what was “necessary.”

“He said this to my special envoys,” Mr Erdogan was quoted as saying. “We are waiting patiently.”

Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia has changed its narrative about Khashoggi’s killing. It first said he walked out of the embassy the day he disappeared before eventually acknowledging Khashoggi died inside the consulate.

Now, it acknowledges that the journalist’s death was premeditated. Saudi officials characterise the killing as a rogue operation carried out by Saudi agents who exceeded their authority.