*Fiancee urges Trump to back probe
The order to murder Saudi journalist and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi came from "the highest levels" of the Riyadh government, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday in a Washington Post op-ed.
"We know that the perpetrators are among the 18 suspects detained in Saudi Arabia. We also know that those individuals came to carry out their orders: Kill Khashoggi and leave," he wrote.
"Finally, we know that the order to kill Khashoggi came from the highest levels of the Saudi government."
Erdogan added that he did "not believe for a second" that Saudi's King Salman had ordered the hit on Khashoggi, who was murdered at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2.
Meanwhile, a Turkish official claimed that Khashoggi's body was "dissolved" after he was murdered and dismembered in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul a month ago, according to .
The claim echoed details a Turkish official had earlier given to the Washington Post — for which Khashoggi was a contributor — that authorities were investigating a theory the body was destroyed in acid.
"We now see that it wasn't just cut up, they got rid of the body by dissolving it," Yasin Aktay, an official in Turkey's ruling party, told the Hurriyet newspaper in a story published Friday.
"According to the latest information we have, the reason they cut up the body is it was easier to dissolve it," said Aktay, an adviser to President Erdogan who was close to Khashoggi.
"They aimed to ensure no sign of the body was left."
Turkey's chief prosecutor on Wednesday confirmed for the first time that Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the consulate on October 2 as part of a planned hit, and his body was then dismembered and destroyed.
The Turkish official quoted by the Washington Post said that "biological evidence" found in the consulate's garden indicated the body was likely disposed of near where Khashoggi was killed.
Saudi authorities have denied Turkish police permission to search a well in the consulate's garden, but did allow them to take water samples for analysis, according to local media reports.
Khashoggi's fiancee Hatice Cengiz, who waited outside the consulate as the journalist entered to obtain documents for their upcoming marriage, said what was done to his body was "brutal, barbaric and ruthless".
"It is now up to the international community to bring the perpetrators to justice. Of all nations, the United States should be leading the way," Cengiz said in opinion article published in the Washington Post, The Guardian and other media outlets Friday.
"The Trump administration has taken a position that is devoid of moral foundation," she wrote, adding that "there will be no cover-up".
Germany and Switzerland have vowed to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia until the case is clarified.
In her article, Cengiz noted that the one-month anniversary of Khashoggi's death fell on the UN's International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.
"We must all send a clear message that authoritarian regimes cannot kill journalists ever again," she said.
She called for President Donald Trump to back Turkey's efforts to investigate his death and recover his body.
"I would like to send this message to Mr Trump: I would like him to support Turkey's legal efforts in trying to bring light to the situation and to discover the whereabouts of his body," Cengiz said in a recorded message broadcast at a memorial for Khashoggi in Washington.
She has previously said she was "extremely disappointed" with the response of various countries' leadership to the killing, especially that of the US.
