Got him! Magnotta arrested in Berlin

UPDATE, JUNE 6, 12:35PM — XTRA STAFF: The investigation into packages containing a hand and a foot mailed to two Vancouver schools on April 5 has been turned over to Montreal police, raising questions about a connection to the Magnotta case. The packages allegedly originated from Montreal and are being sent back there for DNA testing. Vancouver police say they don’t know why the two schools were targeted.

UPDATE, JUNE 4, 11AM — XTRA STAFF: Magnotta arrested in Berlin.

UPDATE, JUNE 4 10AM — XTRA STAFF: An interesting story about the animal rights activists who trailed Magnotta from 2010.

UPDATE, JUNE 3, 3:32PM — XTRA STAFF: Photos on the Interpol website reportedly show Magnotta passing through airport security, presumably on May 26 as he left Montreal.

UPDATE, JUNE 2, 6:32PM — XTRA STAFF: The man wanted in the killling of Lin Jun was reportedly spotted Thursday, May 31, in a Paris bar.

JUNE 1 – By Justin Ling: “Parasites,” is the word one poster on StormFront, a self-proclaimed “white-nationalist” website, uses to describe non-white inhabitants of ethnically “white” countries.

That poster appears to be Luka Magnotta, now wanted by Canadian and international authorities for the brutal killing of a man in Montreal last week.

Four posts on the site’s forum bill Magnotta as a courageous defender of the white race. The writing style – under the user names reddragon1 and arcangel9 – bears striking resemblance to the writing on Magnotta’s website. The writer breaks suddenly into capitalization, demonstrates similarly poor grammar, links to Magnotta’s website and photographs, and refers repeatedly to the “slander” and “bullying” he faced at the hands of animal rights activists. Magnotta was last in the news in 2010 for posting graphic online video of torturing and killing kittens.

One post by reddragon1, dated May 2011, reads “Magnotta has been forced to leave North America and relocate to Russia for his views on White Supremacy.” The writer further suggests that the video of two cats being killed was fabricated and tied to him and that “mentally ill ethnic groups sent him death threats” as part of a conspiracy to silence his beliefs. Magnotta was in fact born in Scarborough, Ontario, as Eric Clinton Newman. But in August 2010, Magnotta posted photos on another site, ComeBackAlive, that appear to show him in Moscow’s Red Square.

In an eerie allusion to events that would occur a year later – almost to the day – reddragon1, likely Magnotta, writes that the “Chinese [should] get their own countries.” The victim in the gruesome murder and dismemberment video that documents the crime for which Magnotta is wanted by police, is clearly Asian. UPDATE: The victim has been identified as 33-year-old Concordia University student Lin Jun, from mainland China.

Another post by reddragon1, also dated May 2011, is a terse reaction to a story entitled “Toronto’s Mayor Slams Gay Israel–Bashers.” The writer rails against Jewish people, writing, among other things, “I wish these Jews should just get lost.”

Those first two posts do not link to Magnotta’s website – which wasn’t created until July – but they do make reference to several other sites of his that have since been shut down.

The next post, this time by arcangel9, dated September 2011, does include a link to Magnotta’s site. The post, titled Luka Magnotta : “Multiculturalism is Dangerous,” includes a manifesto purportedly written by him. It accuses other races of “trying to take over our beautiful countries.” It ends with “Some people fight just to fight – others fight to win,” before listing a series of statistics about the nature of one-parent families.

The writer emphatically rejects the use of violence but then descends into an expletive-laced rant seemingly levelled at the detractors Magnotta amassed on the internet.

The next post, made minutes later, is in a thread about Italian dictatorBenito Mussolini. Arcangel9 writes that Mussolini was a “courageous” individual.

Earlier this week, Xtra broke the news of Magnotta’s ties to white supremacist groups. Other StormFront forum members have condemned him for the Montreal murder, frequently calling Magnotta a faggot.”

Magnotta’s web trail changes conspicuously in the later half of 2011. He seemingly went underground, leaving few online footprints in the year leading up to the murder that he allegedly committed in Montreal. The StormFront posts are among the few that refer directly to Magnotta from that time.

The hunt continues for Magnotta, with authorities saying he may be headed for Paris, though other police sources say he could be anywhere.