German policeman arrested in possible 'cannibal' case

The body parts were found at this location in the mountains near the Czech border

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.

Investigators believe that the two men met via an internet site for cannibalism fetishists.

The suspect denies eating body parts and says he killed the man at his request.

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

Police say that the victim was 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.

Police have been excavating the garden of the property

The property is in the tiny settlement of Gimmlitztal, south of Dresden

The suspect runs a guesthouse from the property

'Fantasies'

Police say that body parts of the victim were missing, and it is possible 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 with a knife.

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

Communication

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.

Mr Kroll said the case shows "how people with the most gruesome fantasies can get together on the internet and live out their perversions in an ever starker form".

Ninety-nine per cent of those involved satisfied their desires by just exchanging information, he added.

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.

The arrested man works as a forensic specialist at this building in Dresden