Five Held in Freezer Death Inquiry

A British man has been arrested in Portugal in connection with the murder of an Irish drug smuggler whose body was found in a freezer. The Briton was arrested along with four Irishmen after the body of Michael "Danzer" Ahern, 38, was discovered at an apartment in the southern Portuguese resort town of Albufeira.

His corpse had four bullet wounds in the head which, unconfirmed reports said, had been severed from his body so it could be shown as proof that he had been killed. Ahern's body could only be identified from fingerprints.

"We think this could have been some sort of score settling that is connected to drug trafficking," said police investigator Carlos do Carmo. "Those people specifically wanted to kill that man."

Irish newspapers reported that Ahern, who held several convictions for drug dealing, had refused to hand over money to finance a deal. His body was shipped back to his home town of Gurranabraher, in Cork, for burial last week. His two teenage sons led mourners at the town's Church of the Ascension.

Portuguese police told the Irish Examiner newspaper that the five arrested men were refusing to talk about the murder.

The killers had cleaned the apartment of bloodstains, burnt Ahern's documents and put his clothes in plastic bags that they were planning to dispose of.

An operation mounted by Irish police after Ahern's body was found a fortnight ago netted drugs with an estimated street value of £700,000. Fifteen kilos of cocaine and a firearm were recovered during raids in and around Dublin.

Ahern and the men arrested in Portugal had been living in the Algarve region for several months and were under investigation for drugs trafficking, Portuguese police said.