Policeman Kills And Eat Man In Germany

Police in Dresden say they have arrested a 55-year-old police officer on suspicion of murder after the body of another man was found in the Erz Mountains in eastern Germany.

They say there are indications that parts of the victim may have been eaten.

The dead man lived in Hanover and had been reported missing.

Police believe that the two men met via an internet site for those interested in sex with torture.

They say that the victim was tortured, killed and dismembered, and that his body parts were buried on a piece of land in the mountainous region which belonged to the alleged killer.

The arrested man, identified as Detlef G, works for Saxony's State Office of Criminal Investigation in the forensics department.

German media report that he is an expert in handwriting analysis.

'Fantasies'

The BBC's Stephen Evans in Berlin says that it is not clear whether the killing was deliberate or whether it was the playing out of a fantasy which went wrong.

Police say that body parts of the victim were missing, and they presume that cannibalism may have taken place.

Dresden police chief Dieter Kroll told a news conference that the victim "had fantasised about being murdered and eaten since his youth".

The two men met at Dresden's main railway station on 4 November, police and prosecutors said, and shortly after their meeting the 59-year-old businessman was killed and dismembered with a knife.

The arrested police officer has given a partial confession and led investigators to the body parts.

After the victim was reported missing by his business partner, investigators found a trail of electronic communication which led them to Detlef G.

The two men are not believed to have met prior to the fatal date.

The case has echoes of the 2001 murder of Bernd Juergen Brandes by Armin Meiwes in Rotenburg in western Germany.

Meiwes is serving a life sentence after killing and eating parts of his victim, who agreed to his death.