Murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a close friend of Osama bin Laden and cried when the al-Qaeda leader died, it has been revealed.
'I just fell apart crying heartbreak to you, Abu Abdullah,' Khashoggi tweeted hours after bin Laden was confirmed dead in May 2011.
'You were beautiful. brave in those beautiful days in Afghanistan before you succumbed to anger and passion', the Arabic tweet added.
The former Washington Post columnist was murdered by a team of assassins at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.
Murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a close friend of Osama bin Laden and cried when the al-Qaeda leader died, it has been revealed
Jamal Khashoggi reportedly broke down and cried when he heard Osama bin Laden (pictured, right) had been killed
A series of taped interviews between Khashoggi and fellow journalist Laurence Wight in 2005 being played for the first time on Yahoo News podcast Conspiracyland reveal the extend of the slain journalist's relationship with bin Laden.
Khashoggi first made headlines as a young journalist when he was invited by bin Laden to cover the war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan.
His headline in Saudi outlet Arab News on May 4, 1988, read 'Arab youths fight shoulder to shoulder with Mujaheddin'.
The piece praised bin Laden, identifying him by his nom du guerre Abu Abdullah, and applauded Arabs who had joined the fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
During these trips, Khashoggi later recalled, he spent several nights sleeping alongside bin Laden in his camps and in caves.
He described the experience as 'moving' and 'beautiful', characterising bin Laden as
