Turkish officials have played Secretary of State Mike Pompeo the disturbing audio of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi being tortured and murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a report said Thursday.

The head of the State Department heard the grisly recording and was given a transcript of the encounter during a meeting in Turkey on Wednesday, a Turkish official told ABC News.

The revelation came to light Thursday, as Pompeo asked President Trump to give the Saudis more time to complete their investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance.

A State Department spokesperson denied that Pompeo had heard the audio.

“The secretary addressed this yesterday. He has not heard a tape,” the spokesperson, Heather Nauert, told ABC.

Speaking with reporters on Wednesday, Pompeo stressed the “long strategic relationship” that the US has with Saudi Arabia, and described the country as an “important counter-terrorism supporter.”

Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist who had been living in then US, had been critical of the Saudi regime’s crackdown on reporters before he entered the consulate on Oct. 2 and disappeared.