An engineering student accused of decapitating a man he just met and walking into a hospital with the severed head has been pictured for the first time.
Jonathan Uno, 29, from Nigeria, has been living in Lisbon for several months, claiming to study for a PhD at the University of Lisbon’s Instituto Superior Tecnico.
He’s suspected of being behind the brutal murder of Lisbon resident Mussa Balde, 34, originally from Guinea-Bissau.
News of the killing first emerged last Wednesday when cops confirmed a headless body had been found next to central Rossio Railway Station behind the Portuguese capital’s Coliseum of Lisbon concert hall.
A day later, Uno was arrested after walking into the city’s Sao Jose Hospital with his alleged victim’s head wrapped in foil inside a rucksack.
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Investigators say they are still trying to establish a motive for the gruesome murder.
Overnight, police sources said the decapitated head had been washed before being handed in and said they believe it may have been kept in a fridge or freezer for more than 24 hours because of the state it was in, despite the intense summer heat.
One Policia Judiciaria officer told respected Portuguese daily Correio da Manha: ‘The dead man’s head had been treated impeccably. It was clean and you could clearly see it had been washed and well looked after.’
Another well-placed source said: ‘It’s all still very difficult to explain, but it could be down to a cultural question of respect for the victim.’
Investigators have ruled out the possibility that the killing was motivated by drugs and have described the suspect as having an ‘apparently stable’ life in Lisbon.
The police force, in its only official statement so far, confirmed: ‘We have arrested a 29-year-old foreign national strongly suspected of committing the crimes of aggravated murder, desecration of a corpse, and possession of a prohibited weapon in Lisbon on the night of July 29-30.
‘The victim was identified on the same day as a 34-year-old foreign citizen with legal status in the country.
‘On the afternoon of July 31, the suspect voluntarily presented himself at a hospital in Lisbon, carrying a human head that he said he wanted to hand over.’
Police took a knife, which is believed to have been used in the crime, and added that the crime happened after the two had known each other for ‘only a short time’.
Portuguese prosecutors said an autopsy performed on the murder victim’s body showed he had multiple defensive wounds where his attacker had made repeated attempts to stab him.
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