NEW DELHI: As the Turkish police continued its search for more leads in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi authorities have reportedly denied permission to the cops to search a well in the garden of the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul. Basing its report on the security sources, the Anadolu news agency reported that Turkish police "were denied authorisation by Saudi officials to search the well in the consulate garden".

Though there exist several versions of how Jamal Khashoggi, a government critic who was living in self-imposed exile in the United States, was murdered inside the Saudi consulate, none of them has been confirmed by the authorities. Turkey is conducting its own investigation into the killing but it remains unclear where the body of Khashoggi is. However, a UK broadcaster on Tuesday reported that body parts of the dissident journalist were found at the Saudi consul general's home.

Turkish media hsd also reported that the authorities have recovered audio tapes which established that Khashoggi was tortured, his fingers were cut off and his body decapitated by his alleged killers.

Meanwhile, United States President Donald Trump said the Saudi authorities staged the "worst cover-up ever" in the killing Jamal Khashoggi. Trump offered his most stinging indictment yet of a Saudi effort to silence a dissident journalist, calling the series of events that led to Khashoggi's death "the worst cover up ever."  "They (the Saudis) had a very bad original concept. It was carried out poorly. And the cover-up was one of the worst in the history of cover-ups. Very simple. Bad deal. Should have never been thought of. Somebody really messed up. And they had the worst cover-up ever," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan termed Khashoggi's killing a "well-planned assassination" and asked that 18 Saudi suspects should face in Istanbul. Erdogan has not pointed the finger of blame at Saudi Arabia but analysts, according to AFP news agency, say Turkey is using the drip-by-drip information leaked to Turkish media outlets as a tool of pressure against the leadership of the kingdom.

Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, disappeared after he entered the Saudi consulate in Turkey on October 2 to collect a document for his upcoming marriage to a Turkish woman. The Saudi government initially said he left the consulate through the back door. Following a global outrage, Riyadh on Friday in a statement acknowledged that Khashoggi was killed in a fistfight inside the consulate after an interrogation went wrong.

(With inputs from agencies)