LONDON: London police investigating the 2008 murder of a Norwegian student on Tuesday said they had made an arrest, as they urged a Yemeni suspect who fled the country to give himself up.
Martine Vik Magnussen, 23, was found dead in the basement of a block of flats in central London, after a night out partying at a private members club popular with celebrities.
A Yemeni man, Farouk Abdulhak, was quickly identified as a suspect for her murder but fled Britain, traveling to Egypt then on to Yemen.
Police on Monday said a woman in her 60s was arrested in central London on suspicion of assisting an offender and was taken into custody.
The victim’s father, Odd Petter Magnussen, said he welcomed what he called a “very interesting” development, adding that he felt the case was “closer than ever to a conclusion.”
“Small details can put considerably more pressure on the suspect and his family,” he told broadcaster NRK.
“I have no information other than that (the arrested woman) is neither Norwegian nor English,” Magnussen said, adding that he believed the arrested woman “would have helped the suspect in his escape.”
Magnussen is due to visit the UK this week to mark the 14th anniversary of his daughter’s death.
Detective Chief Inspector Jim Eastwood, leading the investigation, said the development “represents a positive step,” but note that there was “still much more work for us to do.”
“Most importantly, Farouk Abdulhak should be aware that this matter has not, and will not, go away,” he said, promising to do everything to bring him back to Britain.
“His status as a wanted man will remain and we will not cease in our efforts to get justice for Martine’s family.
“I’m appealing to Farouk Abdulhak directly: come back to the UK. Come back to face justice.”
Magnussen and Abdulhak were both students at the private Regent’s University London — then known as Regent’s College — and knew each other socially.
He was also well known to her friends.
Abdulhak, who was 21 at the time and had lived in London since childhood, stayed at the flat in Great Portland Street, near Regent’s Park, where her body was found on March 16, 2008.
A post-mortem examination gave the cause of death as compression to the neck. She had also been raped.
At an inquest in 2010, a coroner ruled that she was unlawfully killed.
London police make arrest in 2008 murder of Norwegian
https://arab.news/9thtw
London police make arrest in 2008 murder of Norwegian
- Police said a woman in her 60s was arrested in central London on suspicion of assisting an offender and was taken into custody
- A Yemeni man, Farouk Abdulhak, was identified as a suspect in the murder of Martine Vik Magnussen – he fled Britain, traveled to Egypt and then on to Yemen
Russian minister visits Cuba as Trump ramps up pressure on Havana
- The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba
HAVANA: Russia’s interior minister began a visit to ally Cuba on Tuesday, a show of solidarity after US President Donald Trump warned that the island’s longtime communist government “is ready to fall.”
Trump this month warned Havana to “make a deal,” the nature of which he did not divulge, or pay a price similar to Venezuela, whose leader Nicolas Maduro was ousted by US forces in a January 3 bombing raid that killed dozens of people.
Venezuela was a key ally of Cuba and a critical supplier of oil and money, which Trump has vowed to cut off.
“We in Russia regard this as an act of unprovoked armed aggression against Venezuela,” Russia’s Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev told Russian state TV Rossiya-1 of the US actions after landing in Cuba.
“This act cannot be justified in any way and once again proves the need to increase vigilance and consolidate all efforts to counter external factors,” he added.
The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba.
Russia and Cuba, both under Western sanctions, have intensified their relations since 2022, with an isolated Moscow seeking new friends and trading partners since its invasion of Ukraine.
Cuba needs all the help it can get as it grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades and now added pressure from Washington.
Trump has warned that acting President Delcy Rodriguez will pay “a very big price” if she does not toe Washington’s line — specifically on access to Venezuela’s oil and loosening ties with US foes Cuba, Russia, China and Iran.
On Tuesday, Russia’s ambassador to Havana, Victor Koronelli, wrote on X that Kolokoltsev was in Cuba “to strengthen bilateral cooperation and the fight against crime.”
The US chief of mission in Cuba, Mike Hammer, meanwhile, met the head of the US Southern Command in Miami on Tuesday “to discuss the situation in Cuba and the Caribbean,” the embassy said on X.
The command is responsible for American forces operating in Central and South America that have carried out seizures of tankers transporting Venezuelan oil and strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats.
- Soldiers killed -
Cuba has been a thorn in the side of the United States since the revolution that swept communist Fidel Castro to power in 1959.
Havana and Moscow were close communist allies during the Cold War, but that cooperation was abruptly halted in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet bloc.
The deployment of Soviet nuclear missile sites on the island triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when Washington and Moscow came close to war.
During his first presidential term, Trump walked back a detente with Cuba launched by his predecessor Barack Obama.
Thirty-two Cuban soldiers, some of them assigned to Maduro’s security detail, were killed in the US strikes that saw the Venezuelan strongman whisked away in cuffs to stand trial in New York.
Kolokoltsev attended a memorial for the fallen men on Tuesday.
