A woman was arrested yesterday in connection with the murder of a boy whose torso was found in the river Thames last year.
The married mother, who is in her 30s and of West African origin, was held at her home in Glasgow before being transferred to a police station in south London for questioning last night.
Officers from the Metropolitan and Strathclyde police forces removed possessions from the house. They are believed to have found something significant but refused to give further details.
The boy was thought to have been five or six when he died after his throat was cut. His head and limbs were cut off in what is believed to have been a ritual sacrifice.
His torso, clad in a pair of orange shorts, was spotted floating in the Thames by a man walking across Tower Bridge on September 21. The body is thought to have been in the water for up to 10 days.
Detectives described yesterday morning's arrest as "significant" and confirmed it was the first since the child's body was discovered.
Detectives initially pursued the theory that the boy - who they named Adam - could have been the victim of a black magic killing of the kind practised in South Africa.
Police there have estimated that hundreds of children may have been killed by witch doctors practising a perversion of traditional "muti" medicine, using body parts to make life enhancing ointments.
British officers leading the hunt for Adam's killer travelled to South Africa where Nelson Mandela made a public appeal for information.
But an expert on African ritual practices, who has been advising the Metropolitan police, has said it might also be linked to West African voodoo.
Following the discovery of Adam British detectives are re-examining a 33-year-old murder case in which the torso of a baby girl was found in Epping Forest, Essex