Hanoi - Vietnamese police have arrested a pop singer in Hanoi after he killed a woman in an "exorcism," state media reported Tuesday.

Nguyen Viet Cuong, 40, a little known singer of Vietnamese pop music, went to a friend's house for a party early Monday morning where he and other guests consumed an unspecified narcotic, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.

Suffering from hallucinations, Cuong became convinced that a 20-year-old woman, identified only as H by police, was possessed by an "evil spirit" and began forcing garlic cloves down her throat to exorcise the spirit.

Police later discovered 33 cloves in the woman's windpipe, determining the cause of death as suffocation. Cuong remains in detention pending an investigation.

dpa