Fridae

Police in the central German city of Kassel last Wednesday reported that they have arrested a 41-year-old man who claims he killed his sex partner and ate him - with his victim's permission. The victim had reportedly wrote his will immediately before he met his murderer, authorities said amid mounting indications that both victim and killer engaged in cannibalism.

According to the police, they arrested the man after finding a further advertisement that he posted on the net seeking another volunteer who wanted to be killed and eaten by him. Police believe the murder occurred in spring 2000.

Prosecutors said they were treating the case as murder.

The accused, identified only as Armin M, videotaped the crime after finding the apparently willing victim through an Internet advert, the state prosecutor's office in the central German city of Kassel said in a statement.

"The accused supposedly first cut off the penis of the victim by mutual agreement because they wanted to eat it together," the statement read. According to some reports, the suspect and his still living victim ate the man's penis, which has been cooked.

The accused then killed his victim with deep cuts to the neck, and then chopped the body into pieces which he deep froze and later ate, the statement said.

"While he froze portions of the flesh, he supposedly buried the rest of the corpse. He ate most of the flesh later."

"The victim appeared to be fully aware of the situation," an investigator said. "Videotape material definitely shows both him and the suspect engaged in eating his own flesh prior to his death."

Law officers who have seen the video made by the suspect of the final moments of his victim's life were said to be undergoing psychiatric counselling.

The suspect admitted having videotaped himself killing the man he had met through a gay Internet chat room notice placed by the murderer, one of 80 such notices he had put on the Internet. The notices read: "Gay male seeks hunks 18-30 to slaughter."

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Police said a chat room user tipped them off to the existence of the ads. They now know of at least five respondents to the ad, besides undercover officers who answered it and quickly determined it was meant literally.

His 42-year-old victim, a computer chip developer at Siemens Corporation in Berlin identified as Bernd Juergen Brandes, willingly allowed himself to be led to the slaughter, police said.

On the morning of his disappearance on March 9 last year, Brandes wrote out his will and had it notarised. He left the bulk of his estate, including a lavish penthouse apartment and US$50,000 worth of computer equipment to his live-in partner, a man named Rene.

Rene knew nothing of his plans and discovered the will only after his partner was reported missing, according to Berliner Morgenpost newspaper. Unknown to Rene, the victim had told his boss he was taking that day off "to attend to some personal matters". That was the last time he was seen in Berlin.

Police said the victim had his passport and several thousand dollars in cash when he travelled 300km from Berlin to the alleged murderer's house on his sprawling 17th Century estate in the idyllic central German town of Rotenburg an der Fulda near Kassel.

In addition to frozen human flesh and skeletal remains, police found the cellar of the house had been made into a two-room abattoir, including trough drains and meat hooks.

Police used diggers to unearth body parts on the grounds of the estate. The body parts were undergoing DNA testing to determine whether they came from perhaps more than one victim although authorities on Friday said there they have found no indications that more than one person's remains had been disposed of at the estate.

The suspect is known to have served a dozen years in the German armed forces as a non-commissioned officer in ordinance. After leaving the military in 1991 he was trained as a computer technician and until recently worked with a software firm in the Rhine Valley.