"The victim appeared to be fully aware of the situation," an investigator said. "Videotape material definitely shows him and the suspect engaged in eating his own flesh prior to his death." Law officers who have seen the video made by the suspect of the final moments of his victim's life were said to be undergoing psychiatric counselling. The 41-year-old suspect, identified only as Armin M, admitted having videotaped himself killing the man he had met through a gay internet chat room. Both men were described as computer experts and "internet addicts". Authorities filed murder charges against the reclusive Armin M yesterday.



His 42-year-old victim, a computer chip developer at Siemens Corporation in Berlin identified only as Bernd Juergen B, willingly allowed himself to be led to the slaughter, police said. On the morning of his disappearance on March 9 last year, Bernd Juergen B wrote out his will and had it notarised. He left the bulk of his estate, including a lavish penthouse apartment and $US50,000 ($88,560) worth of computer equipment to his live-in partner, a man named Rene.

Rene knew nothing of his plans and discovered the will only after Bernd Juergen B was reported missing, according to Berliner Morgenpost newspaper. Unknown to Rene, the victim had told his boss he was taking that day off "to attend to some personal matters". That was the last time he was seen in Berlin. Police said the victim had several thousand dollars in cash and his passport when he travelled 300km from Berlin to the alleged murderer's rambling half-timbered house near Kassel.

The two men had met through the chat room notice placed by the murderer, one of 80 such notices he had put on the internet. The notices read: "Gay male seeks hunks 18-30 to slaughter." Police said a chat room user tipped them off to the existence of the ads. They now know of at least five respondents to the ad, besides undercover officers who answered it and quickly determined it was meant literally.

In addition to frozen human flesh and skeletal remains, police found the cellar of the house had been made into a two-room abattoir, including trough drains and meat hooks. Police said Armin M had stabbed the man to death and dismembered the body. He froze the meat in "meal-sized packets" and ate most of it, burying the portions he did not eat. The murder suspect was described by neighbours as a pleasant and polite man who kept to himself, though one said: "He was a mama's boy. He was totally fixated on his mother, who he said never let him date girls.."

He served a dozen years in the German armed forces as a non-commissioned officer in ordinance. After leaving the military in 1991 he was trained as a computer technician and until recently worked with a software firm in the Rhine Valley.

Agencies