Brazilian footballer’s girlfriend ‘fed to dogs’

LONDON - A missing former girlfriend of a Brazilian footballer was strangled to death and her body was cut up and then fed to dogs, police said.

Eliza Samudio, 25, was the former girlfriend of Bruno Fernandes, 25, goalkeeper for Brazilian club Flamengo. She went missing nearly a month ago.

Samudio was taken by force from a hotel in Rio de Janeiro on the day of her disappearance and was strangled in Belo Horizonte city, police said, adding that her body was cut up and parts were fed to dogs, while the rest was buried in concrete.

A warrant was issued for Fernandes’ arrest over her disappearance. Fernandes later handed himself to police, but has denied any wrongdoing, saying he has a “clear conscience”, BBC reported.

Police, however, said a cousin of Fernandes has given evidence that the goalkeeper was involved in the kidnap and suspected murder of Samudio, after she claimed that the footballer was the father of her baby.

Police also arrested Fernandes’s wife and several of his friends.

Interrogation of the other suspects has backed up the account given by Fernandes’s cousin, they said.

Meanwhile, Flamengo have suspended Fernandes’s contract and said the club lawyer will no longer be acting in his defence.