From Montreal to Berlin via Paris: Canada's 'psycho killer' gay porn actor arrested

The international manhunt for the Canadian "psycho killer" wanted for the gruesome murder and dismemberment of his lover ended in the German capital, Berlin, yesterday when he was arrested in a dramatic police raid on an internet café.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, a 29-year-old gay pornographic film actor and model, was seized in the café on the Karl-Marx-Strasse in the working-class Neukölln district of the city after catching an overnight bus from Paris on Friday. The owner recognised him and tipped off the police.

Magnotta is suspected of killing his lover, Jun Lin, a 33-year-old Chinese student, in a gruesome murder carried out in a Montreal apartment. He is thought to have dismembered his lover's body and posted body parts to political parties in Canada. Some reports said Magnotta had also eaten parts of his victim's corpse.

Police said a video posted online, in which a man is seen using an ice pick to kill another man, is believed to be footage of Jun Lin's murder. The killer's motive is believed to have been jealousy.

The Berlin newspaper BZ quoted police as saying that Magnotta was captured during a raid on the Neukölln internet café as he was sitting at a computer, apparently looking at online news reports about himself. The owner of the café had earlier identified him and phoned the police, the newspaper said. Police said that Magnotta surrendered without resistance to armed officers. They asked him whether he was the man being sought by Interpol and he replied, " Yes, that's me." Police then handcuffed him and took him away.

Magnotta arrived in Berlin on a bus from Paris, where police had been attempting to track him down via calls he had made on his mobile phone. He had earlier flown from Montreal to the city. A Paris bar owner who reportedly identified him was quoted by the Le Parisien newspaper yesterday as saying: " He looked nervous. He spoke English and ordered a coke to take away." He said Magnotta drank the coke in one gulp and was subsequently approached by a heavily built man who appeared to know him. The two then went together into a nearby hotel.

Magnotta has been branded the "Canadian psycho killer" because the soundtrack of the video purportedly showing him murdering his lover contained music from the film American Psycho. Canadian police were first alerted after neighbours objected to the smell of a suitcase found on a rubbish dump near Magnotta's Montreal apartment. It was found to contain the torso of his victim's body.

He also faces charges of threatening Canada's Prime Minister. Before leaving the country, Magnotta posted a package containing a severed foot to the ruling Conservative Party's headquarters, while a hand was discovered in another package at a postal facility, addressed to the Liberal Party of Canada. Police identified the victim as Mr Lin, 33, who they said had dated Magnotta and had a sexual relationship with him.

Earlier, witnesses said they saw Magnotta boarding a bus at the Bagnolet international bus station in the eastern suburbs of the French capital on Friday night. The Eurolines bus company said it has assisted police in handing over bus-station CCTV footage and paperwork on passengers.

Magnotta, who is known also under the name Eric Clinton Newman and Vladimir Romanov, worked as a pornographic film actor and as a male prostitute. He underwent plastic surgery and frequently wore make-up and dyed his hair to change his appearance.