Police find body in Vienna basement, man detained

BERLIN – Austrian police say they have found a decomposing body wrapped in plastic bags in a freezer in the basement of an apartment building in Vienna. A man was detained, but the cause of death wasn’t immediately clear.

Police were alerted to a foul smell in the building in Vienna’s Floridsdorf district on Thursday and found the plastic bags in a switched-off freezer. On Friday, they said an autopsy found no obvious indications of “third-party responsibility” for the man’s death.

A 45-year-old man was detained and told police in questioning that the body was that of a friend whom he had found dead. He told officers that he had packed the corpse in plastic bags and put it in the basement.

Police say further tests, including a toxicological examination, are planned.