British police on Tuesday arrested a woman in connection with the murder of a boy whose mutilated torso was found in a river, a case which has prompted an extended probe into a suspected ritual killing, officers said.
The married mother, who is in her 30s and of west African origin, was arrested at her home in the Scottish city of Glasgow, and then flown to London for questioning.
Detectives described the arrest as ”significant”.
It is the first since the torso of the still unidentified African boy, wearing a pair of orange shorts, was found in the River Thames in London on September 21 last year.
Officers are believed to have made an important discovery at the arrested woman’s home. The dead boy was thought to have been five or six years old when he died after his throat was cut and his head and limbs cut off in what is suspected to have been a ritual sacrifice.
Detectives initially pursued the theory that the boy, whom they named Adam, could have been the victim of a black magic killing of the kind practised in South Africa.
Earlier this year they flew to interview South Africa’s occult crimes unit, the only one of its kind in the world, about ”muti” killings.
These can involve the removal of the victim’s body parts for a potion concocted by a witchdoctor on behalf of a client who wants, for example, to win a business deal or secure good luck.
But an expert on African ritual practices, who has been advising London’s Metropolitan Police on the case, has said it might also be linked to West African voodoo.
British detectives are consulting international colleagues over similarly isolated cases in France, Greece, Italy and the United States.
They are also studying a 33-year-old case in southeast England where a baby girl had her head and limbs cut off in a suspected voodoo ritual.
None of the cases is thought to be linked. – Sapa-AFP