[HollyB]

Perhaps it was recorded and saved in the cloud account.

[cynwoody]

Perhaps it was recorded and saved in the cloud account.

Seems unlikely.

The watch supposedly has three ways to communicate:

1. Bluetooth to the phone. But that's 30-50 feet max. So, too far away, if the girlfriend was waiting out on the street.
2. Via WiFi, but not on just any network. Unlikely it had got on the consulate's network.
3. Via LTE (cellular). But that requires support from a carrier, and supposedly there are none in Turkey.

It's much more likely the audio came from a Turkish bug, but the Turks don't want to admit to espionage (sources and methods, diplomatic fallout), so they invented the smart watch / smart phone / cloud story as a cover.

Here's one tech blog's assessment:

https://mashable.com/article/jamal-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-turkey-apple-watch/