Turkish president Recep Erdoğan is considering releasing some of the hundreds of journalists it holds captive in order to resolve the case of the missing Saudi reporter.
Jamal Khashoggi vanished on 2 October after visiting the Saudi consulate in Turkey, a disappearance that is shrouded in mystery.
And now Erdoğan, a long-standing bastion of the free press, is considering calling on the help of the journalists he has imprisoned in order to get to the bottom of it.
Thanks to a widespread crackdown on media outlets over the past five years Turkey boasts a healthy surplus of investigative reporters in its cells ready to be deployed.
Some 245 hacks currently reside in state correctional facilities, which Erdoğan dubbed a stroke of luck following the suspected state-sponsored assassination of a fellow reporter.
“We shall call on our journalists to help us bring the Saudi government to justice over this shocking crime,” the President said.
“Being critical of a state is only a crime if your fake, inaccurate reports are directed at the Turkish government.
“And we will seek to bring any state who fails to recognise this to account”.
