UKRAINE:A Ukrainian couple have been held for killing and then eating a neighbour after a late-night drinks party ended in cannibalism.
In early December police found a warm frying pan with cooked human flesh when they entered the couple's house in Makeyevska, an industrial town in Ukraine's southeast. They also discovered pieces of meat in the freezer, believed to have come from the victim, a man aged 48.
It is thought that a fight broke out between them after a long night of drinking. The couple, 36 and 34, have since confessed,
According to local reports, they first planned to dispose of the body, but the woman persuaded her boyfriend to taste the meat.
The story only broke yesterday, because until then, Ukrainian media had avoided reporting it on the grounds of taste. The names of the couple arrested have not yet been disclosed.
As the night wore on, a fight broke out between the two men, which turned violent. Local police believe the neighbour was killed with blows from a hammer as well stab wounds from a knife.
They dismembered the corpse before taking the near-skeletal remains to a nearby sewage chute and dumped it there.
However, the crime scene was discovered just five hours later, with blood all over the house and a warm frying pan in the kitchen, still containing human remains.
It is not the first cannibalism reported in the town. Just over two years ago, two homeless people were convicted of killing a friend in a fight and then eating his liver.
There was also an outcry in Germany in 2003 when a man confessed to eating his victim's penis.
Armin Meiwes (44) claimed that he fantasised about cannibalism after watching horror movies as a child. Bernd-Jurgen Brandes (43) answered an internet ad and voluntarily had his penis severed, watched it being cooked and then ate it with Meiwes before he was stabbed to death.