Three EU countries drawn into grisly murder probe

Police in three neighbouring EU countries have been drawn into investigating a spine-chilling murder in which the victim was chopped up and her body parts dumped across different borders.

Authorities on Tuesday confirmed that a head and legs found on November 1 in the German town of Trier belonged to a torso discovered on September 19 in the French town of Mont-Saint-Martin.

The towns are some 60 kilometres (40 miles) apart on either side of the tiny country of Luxembourg, where a 48-year-old man was arrested on October 6 on suspicion of the murder.

The victim has been identified as a 40-year-old Portuguese woman named Diana Santos, who lived in northern Luxembourg.

Luxembourg media reported suspicions the grisly crime was related to an arranged marriage ring.

German and Luxembourg police said on Tuesday that DNA tests confirmed all the body parts were from Santos.

According to investigators she appeared to have been killed in one location and her remains transported to the sites where they were later discovered.

The torso in the French town was found in an abandoned building and identified by its tattoos. A French autopsy found no gunshot or stab wounds on the remains, nor any indication of sexual violence.

The body parts left in Germany were spotted in a bush next to a parking lot.

Prosecutors in the Luxembourg town of Diekirch, where Santos had resided, have taken the lead in the case.

Diekirch is roughly equidistant between Trier and Mont-Saint-Martin.

EU law enforcement services often cooperate in cross-border crimes, both on a bilateral basis and also through the European agencies Europol and Eurojust.