Cops: Porn actor sent foot to PM
2012-06-03 08:53
Toronto - A porn actor accused of videotaping a gruesome murder before posting it to the internet will be charged with threatening Canada's prime minister after mailing a severed foot to his Conservative party headquarters, police said on Saturday.
Montreal Police Commander Ian Lafreniere said on Saturday that because it was addressed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's party office they can lay an additional charge against Luka Rocco Magnotta.
Magnotta is also wanted for first-degree murder, defiling a corpse and using the mail system for delivering "obscene, indecent, immoral or scurrilous" material.
Lafreniere also said they still believe Magnotta, 29, is in France. Police have said Magnotta fled to France on May 26 based on evidence they found at his apartment. Police identified the victim as Chinese university student Jun Lin, 33. Police said they dated.
The case began on Tuesday, when a package containing a severed foot was opened at the ruling Conservative Party headquarters. A hand was discovered at a postal facility, addressed to the Liberal party of Canada. A torso was found in a suitcase on a garbage dump in Montreal, outside Magnotta's apartment building.
Stabbing another
Police suspect Magnotta filmed the murder. The video, posted online, shows a man stabbing another man with an ice pick while the victim lies naked and tied up. The first man later reveals he has slashed the other man's throat. He also dismembers the corpse and performs sexual acts with it.
An online video also shows a man who looks like Magnotta committing violent acts against kittens. The video contains at least one photo made available by Montreal police that identified the man as Magnotta. For nearly two years, animal-rights activists have been looking for a man who tortured and killed cats and posted videos of it online.
"This is the kind of guy that's looking for attention," Lafreniere said. "He likes to glorify himself with the web. The web will glorify him and the web is also going to bring him back to justice because there are a lot of pictures of him out there and it will help lead him to us."
Police said Magnotta's birth name is Eric Clinton Newman and that he is also known by the name Vladimir Romanov, and they described him as white and 1.78m with blue eyes and black hair.
- AP
