Turkish official claims Saudis dissolved body of journalist Jamal Khashoggi

Even as calls for the return of Jamal Khashoggi's body keep getting louder and criticism of Saudi Arabia for reportedly murdering him become stronger, a Turkish official has said it may never be possible to recover the journalist's body because it may have been dissolved.

Khashoggi was a Saudi who was extremely critical of some of his country's national and international policies. He had fled to the United States in 2017. Last month, he entered the Saudi embassy in Istanbul but never left the building. It is widely suspected that the Saudis sent a special team to eliminate him and then pretended for days that they had no clue about his whereabouts after he had 'left' the embassy. They would later admit that Khashoggi was indeed killed, killed inside their embassy, killed by mistake.

The US reaction to the incident has been widely seen as lukewarm and devoid of any reprimand for allies Saudi Arabia. Turkey though has been investigating the matter and President Recep Erdogan has said orders to kill Khashoggi came from the 'highest levels of the Saudi government.' An official in Erdogan's party has now told a local newspaper in Turkey that the post-murder coverup may have been more sinister than thought of before. "We now see that it wasn't just cut up, they got rid of the body by dissolving it," Yasin Aktay told Hurriyet. "According to the latest information we have, the reason they cut up the body is it was easier to dissolve it."

Aktay is an advisor to Erdogan and is reportedly updated with the Turkish investigations into the matter regularly.

This could mean even more severe backlash for Saudi Arabia - a country that is not just accused of murdering a journalist but possibly getting rid of the body in the most inhuman manner.