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Tape bars the area where body parts were found. Photo: AFP

German policeman admits stabbing man in throat, cutting body up

Officer tells investigators that man he met on internet fantasised about being killed and eaten

AP

A German police officer has been arrested on suspicion of killing and chopping up a man he met on the internet who had long fantasised about being killed and eaten, authorities said yesterday.

The handwriting and document analysis specialist was arrested on Wednesday at his workplace, the Criminal Technical Institute in Dresden, authorities said. He told investigators that he fatally stabbed the victim in the throat on November 4, hours after the two met in person for the first time.

The 55-year-old said he then chopped up the body into multiple pieces. The suspect pointed officers to a number of places around his property, south of Dresden, where he had buried the remains, city police chief Dieter Kroll said at a televised news conference.

The killing happened about a month after the pair first met in an internet chat room, police said. The unnamed 59-year-old victim travelled about 400 kilometres by bus from Hannover to the meeting.

Police started looking into the case when the victim was reported missing on November 11 by a colleague. Two days later, witnesses told officers that "the missing man had fantasised since his youth about being killed and eaten by another person," Kroll said.

There is no indication at this point that the suspect ate body parts, and the suspect denied having done so, prosecutor Lorenz Haase said.

He said that the suspect didn't mention whether the two had sexual relations before the killing.

"That's under investigation," Haase said in a telephone interview. "He said that his victim wanted to be killed and he fulfilled this wish."

Investigator Maik Mainda said the victim and the suspected killer maintained "very intense contact by chat, by mail, by SMS but also by telephone" after first becoming acquainted in early October. The website they used says it deals with "exotic meat."

The men agreed to meet up in Dresden on November 4, and agreed that the killing should take place shortly afterwards. Police are only just beginning their investigation, Mainda added.

"I can't give any conclusive information yet about the actual motivation of the suspect for killing his victim. We are investigating in all directions."

The case appears to have some parallels with a saga that both fascinated and appalled Germany a decade ago, when confessed cannibal Armin Meiwes was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for the killing of an internet acquaintance. Meiwes, who captured the killing on video, said his victim answered an internet posting seeking a young man for "slaughter and consumption."

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Policeman: I butchered body in 'cannibal' case
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