'Canadian Psycho' Luka Magnotta Arrested In Germany

[News_Editor]

'Canadian Psycho' Luka Magnotta arrested in Germany < br />

2012-06-05 03:56:56 GMT+7 (ICT)

BERLIN, GERMANY (BNO NEWS) -- Police in the German capital of Berlin on Monday afternoon arrested a Canadian man accused of killing and dismembering a Chinese student in Montreal and posting a video of the gruesome crime on the internet, officials said. It ends a nearly week-long global manhunt.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, who has been dubbed the 'Canadian Psycho' by media organizations, was arrested at approximately 1:30 p.m. local time at an internet cafe in the Berlin borough Neukölln after an employee recognized him and warned police officers who were nearby.

"A civilian spotted Magnotta and stopped a police patrol on the street," a Berlin police spokesperson said. "He tried to give a false name. When he realized that he couldn't escape the situation, he said 'you've got me.' The policemen identified Magnotta and arrested him without resistance."

The internet cafe employee, who had just read a story in the newspaper about the Canadian murder, was identified as 42-year-old Kadir Anlayisli. The German newspaper De Bild reported that Anlayisli saw Magnotta reading stories about himself at a computer and quickly ran outside to warn police, although he was at first ignored by a patrol car in front of the store. A second patrol car stopped.

Magnotta has been charged in Canada with the murder of 33-year-old Lin Jun, a Chinese student who studied at Concordia University. He was last seen on May 24 but was not reported missing by his family until Tuesday last week, the day body parts were mysteriously delivered or addressed to political parties in Ottawa.

One package containing a severed human foot was delivered to the Conservative Party headquarters in Ottawa while another package containing a human hand was discovered at a Canada Post office. The second package was addressed to the Liberal Party headquarters, also in Ottawa. A suitcase containing a torso was discovered in a pile of garbage in the Côte-des-Neiges borough of Montreal, some 165 kilometers (100 miles) east of Ottawa.

Montreal police spokesman Commander Ian Lafrenière said on Friday that Magnotta took a flight from Montreal's Trudeau airport to the French capital of Paris on Saturday. Items belonging to Magnotta were later found at a hotel room in the Paris suburb Bagnolet, and police traced his mobile phone to two Paris districts. He was later spotted taking a bus from France to Berlin.

Magnotta is believed to have filmed the murder of Lin Jun and then posted the nearly 11-minute edited video online. The video shows a man, believed to be Magnotta, using an ice pick to repeatedly stab an Asian man who is tied to a bed. An analysis of the room in the video matches photos of Magnotta's apartment, where police found a gruesome crime scene and additional body parts belonging to Lin Jun.

The video continues to show the murderer dismember his victim with a kitchen knife before sexually abusing the dismembered and decapitated corpse. One scene appears to show Magnotta eating the victim's flesh and allowing a dog to feast on the torso. Other acts shown in the video are too disturbing to describe in this report.

But Magnotta, who previously worked as a low-budget pornographic actor and model, was already notorious on the internet for other videos. The first known video to surface, published in December 2010, showed a young man placing two small kittens in a vacuum seal bag before sucking the air out of it, leaving the kittens to suffocate. Subsequent videos and photos showed the dead cats in a freezer, their corpses dismembered and the man simulating sex acts on them.

This and other videos, showing cats being eaten by a python and another being drowned in a bath tub, made Magnotta notorious among animal lovers who discovered his real name and launched an online campaign to seek his arrest and prosecution. Several rewards were issued but police seemed to have little, if any, interest in finding the person responsible.

The Sun reported on Friday that Magnotta is believed to have sent an email warning to the British tabloid in early December 2011. He had showed up unannounced at the tabloid's office in London to deny he was responsible for the videos showing kittens being killed.

However, just days after Magnotta's visit, The Sun newspaper received a mysterious e-mail on December 10. The email was written under the name John Kilbride, a possible reference to a 12-year-old British boy who was brutally murdered by serial killer Ian Brady in November 1963.

"Well, I have to say goodbye for now, but dont worry, in the near future you will be hearing from me again," the email, riddled with typos, said. "This time, however, the victims wont be small animals. I will however, send you a copy of the new video im going to be making. You see, killing is different than smoking ... with smoking you can actually quit."

The writer, who is believed to be Magnotta, went on and further hints at taking his killings to a new level. "Once you kill, and taste blood, its impossible to stop. The urge is just too strong not to continue," the email said. "Next time you hear from me it will be in a movie I am producing, that will have some humans in it, not just pussys. The things I have seen and the things I have done, you can only imagine."

The email also indicates the person derives pleasure from taunting people. "You know, the fun part of all this is watching millions of people get angry and frustrated because they cant catch me. Thats why I love this. I love the risk factor. Its so fun watching people work so hard gathering all the evidence, then not being able to name me or catch me," the person writes. "You see, I always win, I always hold the trump card, and I will continue to make more movies."

He concludes the email with: "Well, it was fun f[explicit] around with everyone, so have a merry christmas and a happy new years. I know I will. Getting away with all this, now thats genius. Signed, Yours Truly. (Or is it?)"

Believing the chilling message was written by Magnotta, The Sun reported both the e-mail and the kitten videos to Scotland Yard, which briefly investigated the complaint. "An allegation of malicious communication in the form of an email was made by a man to the Metropolitan Police," a Scotland Yard spokesperson said on Friday.

The spokesperson confirmed it launched an investigation, but it was dropped because both the email and the videos did not originate from the United Kingdom. "An investigation by Islington Police established the origin of the email to be from the Netherlands," the spokesperson said. "Therefore, no crime could be proven to have been committed within the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police."

But the spokesperson said British police did not liaise with authorities abroad, including police in Canada who may have been interested in knowing about the contents of the email. "It had not been possible to glean information regarding any specific locations within 'North America' (US or Canada) or the Netherlands, and as such there was no specific local Force to pass any intelligence to," the spokesperson added.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2012-06-05