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The mutilated body of a 17-year-old British girl has been found in a suitcase by police in Brazil.

The grim discovery was made after a suitcase was found dumped in a river in Goiânia, a city about 120 miles south west of Brazilian capital Brasilia.

Inside was the torso of student Cara Marie Burke. Police identified her from two tattoos on her body.

Police have arrested Cara's Brazilian boyfriend, Mohamed Ali Carvalho dos Santos, aged 20.

According to initial reports on Brazilian news website Bol Ali told police he turned the volume of his stereo up to drown out her screams, before murdering her last Saturday night.

He then hid her body in the bathroom of his apartment and left it there while he went out to a party.

The following day he chopped her body up, took photographs of her mutilated remains with his mobile phone, packed her torso into a suitcase and threw it into one river, then drove about 30 miles to dispose of her head and other body parts in another river.

Police divers have not yet recovered those remains.

Officers arrested Ali in the early hours of this morning and say he confessed he’d killed her because she threatened to tell his parents and the cops about his drug dealing and cocaine addiction. Ali has been charged with murder.

A knife, believed to have been the murder weapon, was found concealed in a drain, near to Ali's apartment, according to Brazilian website ultimosegundo.

Police commander Cláudio de Oliveira is quoted as saying: "There are no words to describe a person like this. He is unprovided for by God and whatever it means to be human."

He added that the murder was committed at about 5pm on Saturday and on the Sunday decided that in order to move the body it needed to be chopped up.

The suitcase was found on Monday and after an appeal for information based on the tattoos on Cara's corpse, Ali was arrested on Thursday.

The chief of police in Goias, Jose Maria da Silva, said: "He confessed (to) the crime. He did not show any regret."

Reports on ultimosegundo said Ali met Cara in London and she had been in Brazil for about three months.

The victim's mother and brother live in London and have been informed.

Her brother Michael, 32, said his family had not decided whether or not to travel to Brazil, and that all they wanted was for police to find the rest of her body so she could be brought home to them.