Two men arrested for the case of the torso found in a suitcase thrown in a container in Barcelona

The police cordon off the area where the body was found, on Tuesday in Barcelona. Gianluca Battista

The Mossos d'Esquadra have arrested two men for their alleged involvement in the murder of a man in Barcelona.

Of him, the police have only recovered a torso that was found on Tuesday in a suitcase inside a container at the crossroads of the streets of Casanova and Avenida de Roma, in the center of the city.

The two suspects allegedly lived with the victim in an apartment located in front of where the body was found, according to sources in the case.

One of those arrested has been released with charges, with the obligation to appear in court, passport withdrawal and prohibition to leave Spain.

For the second, the investigating court number 23 of Barcelona has ordered his entry into prison, communicated and without bail in an open case for a crime of homicide.

Álex, the alleged victim awaiting DNA confirmation, had lived for years as a renter in the huge eight-story building on Casanova street, explains one of the residents.

Reserved, of German origin, the neighbors, in a block where the majority are tenants, did not know much about him, beyond the fact that he sublet rooms.

“He went out and people came in constantly.

We never found out who lived there”, laments his neighbor on the landing, who has a camera installed on the door.

On Friday, the Mossos arrested one of the two investigated on Friday at the home - which has been sealed since Saturday - and the next day at night they arrested the second suspect, who had fled, on a terrace while having a drink.

The discovery of the body took place last Tuesday, after eleven in the morning, when a scrap dealer found the suitcase inside a container that he was removing.

Since then, the Catalan police have searched the area and the video surveillance cameras of the local establishments.

Finally, they found the apartment where they suspect the crime was committed, and where the victim lived with the two alleged implicates.

The one who fled from the two, of Irish origin, had a record of violent crimes, according to sources in the case.

For him, the judge has ordered his entry into pretrial detention.

The second, of Ukrainian origin, had been living in the property for a very short time and, according to those same sources, was not in the place when the crime was committed.

The cameras have been essential in solving crime, but also the door-to-door work of the Catalan police to try to find out more about what happened.

Suspecting that whoever had thrown the suitcase in the container couldn't be very far away, they tried to unravel the skein of a murder that had happened a few days before the discovery, but not much earlier either, according to the state of the body.

This made it possible to initially rule out other cases, such as that of the young man who guarded a marijuana plantation murdered in Lleida a year ago, whose body has not yet been found.

The Mossos are still investigating the motive for the homicide, in a complex case, where the rest of the body parts of the deceased have not appeared.

The police do not rule out that the main suspect previously got rid of them, before a man found the torso in the suitcase that uncovered the crime, rummaging through the garbage.

The agents searched the home for more than 14 hours last weekend, and found no other parts of the body.

So far there are no formal complaints for the disappearance of Álex, although several friends went to the building on Casanova street, surprised because they had not heard from him for days.

Finally, the police contacted them upon learning of his concern, and they managed to put together all the clues that led them to the main suspect.

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