"It was the sort of thing one did at the turn of the century"

The news items do not say whether the acid was subsequently neutralised with an alkaline buffer, and then mixed with cheap red wine, while the consular staff were herded under a large ornate table in the Audience Hall and provided with glasses. I presume that this was the case, so that Saudi officials could smugly announce that "We drank Jamal Khashoggi under the table."

In fact all the cool kids these days are using alkaline hydrolysis for body disposal (Victor the Cleaner is not a reliable source on these matters) but the kleptocratic savages in charge of Saudi Arabia are not really au fait with anything more recent that the Merovingian period.