Updated 01.32 | Published 00.41
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The bags left on a bridge in Bristol contained the bodies of two adult men.
On Friday, a man was arrested in London – but the murder suspect is still at large.
– It is not the same man we were looking for, says a spokesperson for the London police, who have taken over the investigation.
On the night of Thursday, two suitcases were found on a bridge in Bristol, UK. They turned out to contain body parts and a forensic autopsy was carried out on Thursday evening. On Friday, the police announced that the body parts in the suitcases belonged to two adult men.
On Thursday, the police released images of a man they were looking for. He was suspected of having taken a taxi to the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, left the bags there around midnight on Thursday night and then fled towards a nearby forest.
Now a man has been arrested in the mysterious murder case. According to the London police, it is a 36-year-old man who was arrested in Greenwich in South London on Friday.
– He has been deprived of his liberty and will remain there. It is not the same man we were looking for, says a spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police, writes Sky news.
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full screen Police technician on the bridge after the find. Photo: Simon Chapman/Lnp/Shutterstock / TT Nyhetsbyrån
Action in London
The suspect, who wore all-black clothes and a black cap with a large Adidas logo on it, is thus still at large. According to the police, there is “no information to support” that he would remain in the Bristol area.
On Friday, a police operation was underway in the Shepherd’s Bush area of west London, where an apartment building was cordoned off. A police helicopter hovered in the air during the day and at 19.30 Swedish time an ambulance arrived at the scene. According to neighbors, the operation had been going on since the early hours of the morning on Friday.
– I heard a police car that came here with flashing lights. It must have been around four-thirty in the morning, says neighbor Anthony Priest, 85, to Sky news.
Another neighbor told the television channel that they had woken up early in the morning because there had been a lot of life below and that dogs had been barking. According to the police, the murder may have taken place in London.
– Over the past 48 hours, we have worked extremely closely with our colleagues from Avon and SomersetinfocloseAvon and the Somerset Police District at Bristol, says Andy Valentine, who leads the London Police investigation, to Daily Mail.
– This work leads us to believe that the man we need to speak to traveled to Bristol from London earlier on Wednesday night.
New finds in London
On Friday evening, the police announced that body parts had been found in an apartment in Shepherd’s Bush.
“Investigators believe the body parts are linked to those found in Bristol, and that the victims are still two men,” London police said in a statement, according to Sky news.
“Investigators now believe they know the identities of the two men, but a formal assurance of their identities has not yet been made. The investigation is in the process of locating and informing their next of kin.”
The police also released the name of the suspect in black clothes. His name is Yostin Andres Mosquera, he is 24 years old and comes from Colombia, the police said.
“Mosquera is believed to have known both victims previously and London police are appealing for more information about his whereabouts,” police said in the statement.
According to the police, the arrested 36-year-old has now been released.
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full screen Police on the scene at the operation in Shepherd’s Bush in west London. Photo: Martyn Wheatley / Zuma Press
Saw suspicious man
Just before midnight on the night of Thursday – at the same time as England celebrated their advancement to the final of the football European Championship – staff on the bridge in Clifton, a suburb of Bristol, had alerted the police because a man there “behaved suspiciously”, writes the Daily Mail.
It was the staff who then opened the bags and made the macabre find. When the police arrived at the bridge 10 minutes after the alarm, the man was already gone.
Witnesses had then seen what is believed to be the suspect moving towards Leigh Woods, just north of Clifton Suspension Bridge.
Witnesses who saw the man carrying the suitcases say he struggled to lift them because they seemed so heavy. One theory is that he put weights in them so that they would stop at the bottom of the River Avon which flows under the bridge.
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full screen The police are still looking for the man in the picture. Photo: AP
Joked about heavy bags
Witness Giles Malone, who watched England beat the Netherlands in the European Championship in a pub on Wednesday night, had been standing on the bridge ordering a taxi when he saw two men leave a car, carrying two heavy-looking suitcases.
He tells the radio channel LBC that the suitcases were big, old and worn. A woman passing by had offered to help the men with the bags – and joked about its weight.
– The woman who helped them said that “these were the heaviest suitcases I have ever carried. What do you have in them? Dead bodies? Giles Malone said.
Police have been able to rule out that the findings have anything to do with the disappearance of 23-year-old law student Jack O’Sullivan, who was last seen at a house party in Bristol on March 2.