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Martine Vik Magnussen

Age: 23

Sex: female

Date: 18 Mar 2008

Place: Great Portland Street, Westminster, London

Martine Vik Magnussen was found partly naked in the basement of a block of flats in Great Portland Street, London, covered in rubble.

A suspect that had lived in the flats fled to Yemen and has not returned to the UK for questioning. He was said to have been the son of a billionaire Yemeni businessman and to have later accepted responsibility for her death, but refused to return to the UK.

She was last seen two days before with the man at the Maddox nightclub in Mayfair. When she was found she was semi-naked.

She had been raped and her cause of death was given as compression to the neck.

Martine Magnussen lived with friends in Westminster and had gone out on the evening of 13 March 2008 with students from the Regent’s Business School in Regents Park where she studied, including the main suspect who later fled the country and some of her flatmates. They had gone out to celebrate the end of their end of term exams.

She was last seen by her friends at the Maddox nightclub on Mill Street in Mayfair between 2am and 3am on the morning of 14 March 2008 and it is believed that she left the club with the main suspect.

Martine Magnussen was reported missing the following day and during the police investigation her body was found semi-naked in the basement of the main suspects flat in Great Portland Street at 10.20am. An attempt had been made to bury her there. The police had had to knock the basement door down to get in and when they did they found an arm sticking out of a pile of building rubble. The police said that their suspicions were aroused at the flat when they found an item of Martine Magnussen's clothing there.

Her post-mortem found abrasions across her head, neck, face and body indicating that she had fought her attacker. Examination also found that she had alcohol and cocaine in her body.

Martine Magnussen and the main suspect had been in the same class. The main suspect had fled the UK for Egypt hours after her murder and was then thought to have gone on to Yemen.

There is no extradition agreement between Yemen and the UK. However, British authorities were said to be negotiating for the main suspects arrest and the Foreign Secretary, in 2010, William Hague, had had talks in London with Yemeni counterparts. In 2016 the Metropolitan Police reported that extensive diplomatic efforts were still on going. The main suspect was thought to be living in Thaba Abous in Southern Yemen at a family holiday home that was guarded round the clock by armed guards.

Martine Magnussen was a Norwegian and had come to the UK to study.

On 8 March 2022 the police announced that they had arrested a woman in her 60s on suspicion of assisting an offender.

In March 2023 it was reported that the main suspect had admitted his role in Martine Magnussen's death, saying that it was a sex accident gone wrong. however, he was refusing to return to the United Kingdom from Yemen to stand trial.


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