An advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday claimed that the body of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was “dissolved” after he was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a month ago.
“We now see that it wasn’t just cut up, they got rid of the body by dissolving it,” Yasin Aktay told the local Hurriyet newspaper. “According to the latest information we have, the reason they cut up the body is it was easier to dissolve it.”
The office of Turkey’s chief public prosecutor on Wednesday said Khashoggi had been strangled and dismembered soon after entering the consulate and his body was disposed of. On October 24, the office of Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor also accepted that Khashoggi’s killing was premeditated.
“They aimed to ensure no sign of the body was left,” said Aktay. “This is what is understood from the prosecutor’s statement.”
Aktay’s allegations echo those made by an unidentified senior Turkish official, who has claimed that authorities were investigating if acid was used to dissolve the body either on the consulate premises or at a nearby house of the Saudi consul general. “Khashoggi’s body was not in need of burying,” the official told The Washington Post.
Khashoggi, a vocal critic of the Saudi regime, was living in self-imposed exile in the United States since 2017. He was last seen entering the consulate on October 2. Saudi Arabia initially claimed to have no information about his disappearance but later admitted he was killed by agents working without Riyadh’s knowledge.
Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, in a call with US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and National Security Advisor John Bolton, described the journalist as a “dangerous Islamist”. The call reportedly took place before Saudi authorities admitted that Khashoggi had been killed in the consulate.
But Khashoggi’s family has denied the allegations that he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egypt-based Islamist organisation. “He [Khashoggi] denied such claims repeatedly over the past several years,” the family said. “Jamal Khashoggi was not a dangerous person in any way possible. To claim otherwise would be ridiculous.”
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