A German policeman has been arrested after the chopped-up body of a man he met on a fetishist website for cannibalism was found buried in his garden, police in the eastern city of Dresden said yesterday.

“The victim had been fantasising about being killed and eaten by someone else since his youth,” Dresden police chief  Dieter Kroll told a news conference. It was not immediately clear whether any act of cannibalism had taken place.

The investigation recalled the case of Armin Meiwes, dubbed the “Cannibal of Rothenburg”, who killed and ate a man who had advertised on the internet for someone to kill him “and leave no trace”.

Meiwes, who filmed the act, received a life sentence in 2006.

Dresden police said the suspect was a 55-year-old who worked as a technical expert in the criminal investigation department.

The victim was identified only as a 59-year-old man from Hanover and the case was being treated as murder, they said. (Reuters)

Russia’s human Olympic torch

In the latest mishap to befall the Olympic flame, a Russian torchbearer’s clothing caught fire this week as he carried it through a Siberian city.

A clip posted on You Tube by the Russian site Lifenews shows former Olympic bobsledder Pyotr Makarchuk parading the torch through a crowd in the city of Abakan when flames suddenly leap from the left shoulder and upper arm of his jacket.

Escorts immediately put out the flames and Makarchuk was not injured, said Roman Osin, spokesman for the Russian Sochi 2014 torch relay, who witnessed the incident on Wednesday. The flames were caused by drops of liquid gas that fell on Makarchuk’s jacket, he said.

Russia is conducting the longest torch relay before any Winter Games: a four-month, 65,000-kilometre journey that will end at the opening ceremony in Sochi on February 7. The torch has gone out dozens of times, including an incident minutes after President Putin handed it off in Red Square on October 6. (Reuters)

France mulls buying sex fine

Protesters have gathered outside France’s National Assembly as MPs began debating a controversial Bill that would decriminalise prostitutes but fine their customers.

Prostitutes in masks were among about 150 opponents protesting outside Parliament’s lower house in Paris yesterday, some hoisting white banners that read “Sexwork is work” in English.

They faced off with several dozen people who support the Bill – some with orange signs that said: “Our bodies are not merchandise.”

The proposed law would introduce a €1,500 fine for sex customers and decriminalise the estimated 40,000 prostitutes in France – in an attempt to fight human trafficking networks.

President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government backs the bill. The Socialist-led Assembly is set to vote on it on December 4, and if passed it would go to the Senate. (PA)

Doll house sells for €51,000

A beautiful Victorian doll’s house made by a couple for their daughter 160 years ago has sold at auction for £42,410 (€51,032)

Experts predicted that the house, which features traditional furnishings, would fetch between £10,000 (€12,033) and £15,000 (€18,049).

The house was made by a husband and wife known only as Mr and Ms Newton, of Liverpool, for their daughter Emma, then aged six, in 1850.

Lawyer Mr Newton, an amateur carpenter, designed and crafted most of the furniture and the house itself. Ms Newton made the bedclothes and all the furnishing of the miniature property, which are all to scale.

The seller, who wishes to remain anonymous, had owned the house since the early 1970s. (PA)

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