A court in Birmingham has handed down a life sentence to Pole Tomasz Sobczak, who has been found guilty of murdering housemate Sylwia Ciapcinska in July last year.

Sylwia Ciapcinska was last seen at a shopping centre on Burton-on-Trent in the British county of Staffordshire on 20 July last year.

Her remains were discovered two months later, packed into a black suitcase earlier dumped by a river in the Washlands area of Burton.

Sobczak was accused of the 24-year-old’s murder on 5 August 2010, prior to finding the body.

During hearings at Birmingham’s Crown Court, Sobczak repeatedly denied the accusations, although the evidence mounted against him was enough for a jury to deem him guilty.

A laptop found to belong to Sobczak proved key to the trial. Investigations showed that in the days running up to the murder, the Pole searched for methods on how to strangle humans, as well as watched hard-core pornography on the internet.

Sobczak, a married father-of-two who was in debt, told other housemates that Ciapcinska had moved out of the house when they enquired as to her whereabouts.

A box of the victim’s belongings, discovered in the loft of the house in Ash Street, Burton, was found to bear the fingerprints of the accused.

On passing the sentence, the court declared that Sobczak spend at least a minimum 20 years in prison before being allowed the right to parole.

Hailing from Zdunska Wola, central Poland, Sylwia Ciapcinska was a psychology graduate who had come to England to save money to build a house in Poland. She had planned to stay for a year, although was murdered after being in the UK for less than two months. (jb)

Source: PAP/AP