The body of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was “dissolved” after his murder and dismemberment at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, an adviser to the Turkish president has said. “We now see that it wasn’t just cut up; [the Saudi suspects] got rid of the body by dissolving it,” Yasin Aktay, an adviser to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and an official in Turkey’s ruling party, told the newspaper Hurriyet on Friday.

“According to the latest information we have, the reason they cut up the body is it was easier to dissolve it. They aimed to ensure no sign of the body was left,” said Aktay, who was a friend of the dissident Saudi writer. “Killing an innocent person is one crime, the treatment and extent of what was done to the body is another crime and dishonour.”

The remarks represented the first official statement from a Turkish authority about what allegedly happened to Khasoggi’s body. Turkish investigators have been trying to determine whether Khashoggi’s remains could have been dissolved in acid at the nearby consul general’s house. An unnamed official also told the Washington Post “biological evidence” in the consulate’s garden suggested that because of acid “Khashoggi’s body was not in need of burying”.(theguardian)…[+]