Khashoggi's Body Possibly Burnt in Oven in Saudi Consulate in Istanbul - Police

ANKARA (Sputnik) - The body of Saudi opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi might have been burnt in an oven installed in the Saudi Consulate General in Istanbul, the city’s police department said on Thursday.

"An oven was found in the building of the Saudi Consulate General. According to experts, it can heat up to 1,000 degrees Celsius, destroying any biological tissue and leaving no possibility to detect any DNA traces", the police statement says.

The Saudi diplomatic mission ordered 32 servings of raw meat from one of the Istanbul restaurants after the murder of Khashoggi, the police noted.

"The question is whether it was pre-planned. It will be investigated", the statement says.

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The journalist, who worked as a columnist for The Washington Post newspaper and was a vocal critic of Saudi policies, went missing on October 2 after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Riyadh initially denied any knowledge of the journalist's whereabouts, but later admitted that Khashoggi had been killed with a drug injection and his body had been dismembered and taken out of the consulate. The Saudi authorities have charged 11 people with Khashoggi’s murder.

The Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office stated that the assassination of Khashoggi had been pre-planned. Turkey urged Saudi Arabia to extradite the perpetrators of the crime, as well as information on the whereabouts of Khashoggi's body.