Ottawa offers condolences after body-parts victim ID’d
Posted Jun 2, 2012 11:15:10 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA, ON (NEWS1130) – The global impact of the vicious sex killing and dismemberment of a Chinese student in Montreal was brought home when Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird picked up the phone and reached out to China’s envoy to Canada.
Yesterday, a message posted on Baird’s Twitter account said he called ambassador Zhang Junsai “to convey my deep condolences on the senseless killing of Chinese student Jun Lin.”
His office says the minister is promising to keep the Chinese up-to-date with any developments in the international manhunt for suspected killer Luka Rocco Magnotta. The Foreign Affairs Department has also been asked to provide support to the Chinese embassy.
CAUTION: GRAPHIC CONTENT MAY DISTURB SOME READERS
Police identified the 33-year-old Lin yesterday as the man killed in a grisly snuff film that began circulating the Internet days ago. His limbless torso was stuffed in a suitcase found in a heap of garbage behind a Montreal apartment building, while his hand and foot were mailed to the offices of political parties in Ottawa.
Montreal police issued a Canada-wide arrest warrant for Magnotta, who has since been added to Interpol’s wanted persons list. He is wanted for first-degree murder, criminal harassment against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and members of Parliament, defiling a corpse and using the mail system for delivering “obscene, indecent, immoral or scurrilous” material.
The grisly murder has made headlines all over the world as rumours swirl about Magnotta’s possible whereabouts and lurid details emerge about his past as a porn actor who has left behind a bizarre Internet footprint.
An online group has been searching for Magnotta since December 2010, when a video was posted on YouTube showing a young man killing two kittens by putting them in an airtight bag and using a vacuum to suck out the air.
A British tabloid managed to track down Magnotta at a pub near Wembley Stadium last year to ask him about the kitten video.
Reporter Alex West of The Sun newspaper in London says he still feels shaken by his encounter with Magnotta six months ago.
“He was without doubt one of the most disturbed and disturbing individuals I have ever encountered,” West wrote yesterday.
The newspaper also revealed it warned Scotland Yard after receiving a chilling email staff believed came from Magnotta. It is unclear how far the British authorities got in their investigation.
Rumours abound that Magnotta has fled to France. Montreal police will only say he left Canada on May 26 for an unspecified destination
