German man arrested in Greece for hiding friend's corpse

A German man has been arrested and accused of hiding the body of a 54-year-old German woman in a small town in northern Greece for two months after her death, authorities said Monday.

Photo: German man arrested in Greece for hiding friend's corpse

The man was arrested Sunday, after police discovered the bloated and decomposed body of Astrid Schenee laid out on a bed in a small rented apartment in the town of Asprovalta, 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Thessaloniki.

The woman's skin had been washed with bleach and she had been kept under a fan.

Police said Schenee was a retired postal worker from the western German city of Duesseldorf, who had been reported missing by relatives to German authorities, reports AP.

The suspect, who was not named and identified only as a friend of the dead woman, was charged with disrespect and abandonment of a corpse and was taken into police custody in Thessaloniki.

Coroner Minas Georgiadis said the cause of the woman's death had not been determined, adding she had several broken ribs as well as signs of chronic liver disease.