Canal body kept in fridge for six weeks

A woman whose torso was found in a suitcase had been stored in a fridge for six weeks before she was dumped in a canal, police said today.

Detectives later discovered the victim's head and limbs in the same stretch of the Regent's Canal in Islington.

A police source said: "This was a particularly gruesome murder. The woman was stabbed repeatedly and dismembered before being hidden inside a fridge.

"We believe she was there for at least six weeks before the killer panicked and dumped the body."

Police are questioning a 53-year-old man from Dorset about the murder of Nasra Ismail, 27.

The arrest came after a hunt for the tenant of a Highbury council flat where the body was cut up.

Detectives believe the Somaliborn mother-of-two was working as a prostitute when she died.