The Wall Street Journal on Saturday said in the hours leading up to journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal killing, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman sent at least 11 messages to the hit squad boss that carried out the murder.

The electronic messages, whose format were not revealed were said to have been sent by Prince Mohammed to Saud al-Qahtani, who allegedly supervised the 15-man team that killed Khashoggi

Quoting a Central Intelligence Agency assessment, the Journal said Salman told some of his associates in August last year that if he failed to persuade Khashoggi to return to Saudi Arabia, they could ‘possibly lure him outside Saudi Arabia and make arrangements’.

The Journal also said it had reviewed excerpts of the highly classified intelligence document, which relied on electronic intercepts and other clandestine information from the CIA..

Khashoggi, a vocal critic of the crown prince who relocated to Virginia and wrote op-eds for the Washington Post was killed by Saudi operatives inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate on October 2.

After initially denying the murder, Saudi Arabia acknowledged some liability but blamed his death on a ‘rogue’ operation.

The Journal had in November reported that the CIA had concluded that Prince Mohammed had likely personally ordered the killing.

The newspaper said that excerpts of the assessment it had not previously reported said that the CIA had medium-to-high confidence information that Salman personally targeted Khashoggi and probably ordered his death.