Publisher: Korir, api africanpress@getmail.no source.aftenposteneng

British police have opened a murder investigation after the body of a young Norwegian woman studying in London was found in the garbarge room of a fashionable apartment building. Police confirmed Monday that the woman is a student who disappeared late last week.

Martine Vik Magnussen of Asker was found dead in the cellar of a fashionable London apartment building. PHOTO: PRIVAT

The body was found on Sunday, but police withheld confirmation of its sex or identity. Investigators confirmed to Aftenposten.no Monday afternoon that it was that of Martine Vik Magnussen, a 23-year-old Norwegian student from Asker, west of Oslo.

Magnussen’s parents are in London and were told their daughter had been found dead before police went public with the information.

Magnussen was a student at the prestigious Regents College in London. She was last seen late Thursday night at a trendy nightclub in London’s chic Mayfair district.

She was reported missing Friday after she had failed to return to the flat she shared with others.

The apartment building where she was found on Great Portland Street is just north of Mayfair and not far from the Club Maddox where Magnussen was last seen.

When her friends headed home from the club at around 2:30am, Magnussen stayed, and was believed to have planned to go to a late-night party (called a nachspiel, in Norwegian). She was reportedly accompanied by at least one of three Arab men whom Magnussen and her other friends had partied with earlier.

Police reportedly believe she was killed in a flat in the building on Great Portland Street, and that her body was then taken down to the cellar to hide it. The London newspaper Daily Mail reported that the flat is rented by three men from the Middle East and that they are now at the center of the police investigation.

No cause of death was revealed, pending release of an autopsy report.

Tight Norwegian community
Around 400-500 Norwegians are currently studying in London, according to the Association of Norwegian Students Abroad (ANSA). Magnussen’s death has shocked many.

“Even though there are murders in this city almost daily, you’re really affected when something like this happens in the tight community that we belong to,” said Birgitte Årdal of ANSA London.

Many of the students have traveled out of London during the Easter holiday period, but the Norwegian Seamen’s Church in London was opening its doors to any who felt a need for support.

The church in East London’s Rotherhithe district intended to stay open all night, for any students wanting to drop in. “People are worried and uneasy,” said pastor Torbjørn Holt.

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African Press International – api