Canada police hunt porn actor for gruesome murder

Canadian police are searching for a porn actor wanted in connection with two packages of human limbs in Ottawa and a headless torso in Montreal.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, has been named as a suspect by the Montreal police, who have taken over the case.

A blood-soaked package containing a human foot was delivered to the offices of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party on Tuesday.

The second package, containing a hand, was found by police on Tuesday night.

That parcel was addressed to the Ottawa office of the Liberal Party, Canadian media reports.

Montreal police told the BBC that they believed the torso and the limbs were from the same body, but were waiting for test results to confirm this.

Mr Magnotta, who was also known as Eric Clinton Newman and Vladimir Romanov, worked as a bisexual porn actor and model, an official close to the investigation said.

Police described him as a white male, about 5ft 8in (1.78m) tall with blue eyes and black hair.

'Number one suspect'

In a statement, Montreal police said their investigation had led them to an apartment close to where the torso was found in a pile of rubbish.

Luka Rocco Magnotta has two aliases

The apartment was searched while a forensics team was asked to analyse "elements of the scene", <link> <caption>according to a police statement</caption> <url href="http://www.spvm.qc.ca/en/documentation/3_1_4_persrecherchees.asp?noRech=144" platform="highweb"/> </link> .

Montreal police told the BBC that the apartment belonged to Mr Magnotta.

Blood stains were found all over the apartment, police said. "For most of the officers that were there all night long this is the kind of crime scene they've never seen in their career," Police Commander Ian Lafreniere told the Associated Press news agency.

Investigators also believe they have a video of the crime.

"He is our number one suspect," Cmdr Lafreniere of the Montreal police told reporters. "The suspect and victim knew each other."

Police have not yet named the victim.

Flies and maggots

The hand and foot mailed to Ottawa were sent from a fake Montreal address, police told CBC TV.

Officers were called to the headquarters of the Conservative Party on Tuesday after a woman at the front desk partially opened the package, containing the foot.

The package, which was delivered by Canada Post, was not addressed to a specific person, but to the Conservative Party of Canada.

The second parcel, containing the hand, was found in an Ottawa sorting facility and was prevented from being delivered.

The torso in Montreal, which is about 200km (125 miles) east of Ottawa, was discovered by a janitor inside a suitcase in a pile of rubbish.

He told the Ottawa Citizen that he had noticed a smell coming from the suitcase in the past few days.

"I noticed flies and when I looked closer I saw maggots," Mike Nadeau, the janitor, said. "I got a friend and we got some cutters because there was a little lock on the suitcase.

"What I saw when we opened it is hard to describe. There was no head and [the torso] was all grey."