Investigators from Italy are travelling to Colombia to help uncover why a UK-based scientist was killed and some of his remains found in a suitcase in a Caribbean city.
Alessandro Coatti had quit his job with the Royal Society of Biology late last year to travel in South America and do volunteer work in Ecuador, and was last seen leaving his accommodation for a night out in Santa Marta on April 3, Italian media reports.
Over the next few days, police would discover his remains hidden in three different locations, including near the stadium and in a river.
Italy is sending a team to Bogota to assist the investigation, which could include state police officers or members of the Carabinieri’s special operations group, Italy’s Corriere Della Sera reports.
One line of inquiry is whether the killing was a case of mistaken identity in a city that has seen other similar murders due to gang violence, Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported.
Human rights defender and activist Norma Vera Salazar told El Tiempo there had been a clear pattern of similar crimes in the area.
Since the beginning of last year, she said 13 people have been tortured and dismembered, their remains stuffed in coffee sacks or rubbish bags and abandoned on rural roads in the country’s northern Magdalena region.
While those murders are often carried out by organised crime, investigators told El Tiempo there was no connection between drug cartels or criminal gangs and Mr Coatti.
The scientist was due to shortly return to Italy and visit family, his uncle told Corriere Della Sera, and he was just a few months short of his 39th birthday.
Giovanni Coatti said his nephew was a cautious person, and he had never caused problems.
“He was a very good boy, he loved to travel,” his uncle said.
Mr Coatti’s former colleagues at the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) paid tribute to the scientist they knew as ‘Ale’, saying he was “funny and kind” and always curious, asking questions about everything.
“He had so many close friends at RSB and in the bioscience world more widely. He was greatly loved by everyone he worked with. He had many friends here in the UK and family back in Italy,” a spokesperson from the RSB told The Independent.
Mr Coatti had worked at the RSB for eight years, before he left in December. Prior to that he did postgraduate research at University College London and had worked as a science policy intern at the Italian Embassy in London.
The mayor of Santa Marta offered a $50 million peso (£9,000) award for any information relating to the death.
“This crime will not go unpunished. The criminals must know that crime has no place in Santa Marta. We will pursue them until they are brought to justice,” he said.
