Kim Wall's 'deliberately decapitated' torso was weighed down with metal to sink it at sea

The headless torso of Swedish journalist Kim Wall found off the coast of Denmark was deliberately weighed down with a piece of metal, Danish police have said. Wall's limbless body, found on a beach south of Copenhagen, was attached to a piece of metal "likely with the purpose to make it sink", Danish police chief Jens Moeller Jensen said on 23 August.

Police had confirmed that the body belongs to the Swedish journalist, who had been missing for over two weeks. The 30-year-old reporter was allegedly killed while travelling on board a submarine belonging to Danish inventor Peter Madsen. Wall, who had written for the New York Times and Guardian as a freelance journalist, was interviewing him for a feature article.

Madsen initially told police that he dropped Wall off in Copenhagen on 10 August, but changed his story several days later and said that she had died in an accident and that he had buried her at sea.

The Danish inventor has been charged with manslaughter. He denies any wrongdoing. Madsen was rescued from his submarine by the Danish navy on 11 August, shortly before it sank in waters southwest of Copenhagen.

Police said DNA from the torso matched that of Wall, adding that dried blood found inside the submarine also matched the journalist's DNA. Wall's family said the tragedy had struck them "with boundless sadness and dismay."

"The tragedy has hit not only us and other families, but friends and colleagues all over the world," her family said in a statement.