Daily Times

For those who are primarily interested in any psychiatric diagnosis that could apply to serial killing and cannibalism, standard texts are recommended where psychological issues are thoroughly discussed. This article takes a look at Pakistan’s first cannibal serial killer Mohammad Arif, who admitted to eating a child after his brother stole the body from a graveyard in Darya Khan Village. Mohammad Arif was only caught after neighbours complained of a foul smell and found the head of the two-day-old baby. Arif and his brother Farman Ali were caught for eating human corpses in the same village in April 2011 and served two years in prison, charged with only desecrating a dead body and public order offences because there is no specific law against cannibalism in Pakistan’s penal code. Changing society in Pakistan is also leading to increased crime due to mass urbanisation; the constant movement of people is a perfect environment for mass murderers who use transitory existences in their favour. The lack of mental illness support also means that people who suffer are more likely to be both vulnerable and risk-laden. Such criminal cases require serious forensic investigation and both psychiatrists and law enforcement personnel should have a joint professional workforce to avoid any communication failures that have been known to cause grave consequences.
Cannibalism is right up there with incest, necrophilia, and of course murder. Eating members of one’s own species is one of the few remaining taboos in modern human societies. In humans, aggressive cannibalism has been associated with mental illness. Most cannibalism appears to be one of several kinds, each representing a different motivation. Culturally defined ritual endocannibalism or exocannibalism, whilst holding a sort of horrific fascination, appears to not be frowned upon by the rest of the world quite as much as aggressive, undiagnosed cannibalistic serial killing in a society that allows the crime to be repeated because it has ill-defined mental health laws to keep the killer in a secure prison. It is this final form of aggressive cannibalism that causes the most horror, the thought that dinner guests can turn into dinner. The actual slaying of people in order to feast upon them when neither ritual nor survival is involved is quite rare, and represents perhaps the worst and the most dangerous form of its kind. You really do not want to end up having dinner with someone more interested in eating you than feeding you. Hannibal Lecter obviously springs to mind, but there are several real life examples that are more complex, at least for forensic criminology, than anything dreamt up by Thomas Harris. Arthur Shawcross and Jeffrey Dahmer are names perhaps not widely known, but in the dark world of forensic criminologists these men are celebrities in a very awkward A-list.
Through a psychological lens, ‘evil’ is a product of mental illness or personality disorders. Viewed from a psychological perspective, Mohammad Arif is a dangerous but interesting anomaly. Although he commits acts typically characterised as evil, it must first be determined whether he is or is not mentally ill. Although Mohammad Arif confessed that he does not hesitate to torture and kill when he deems it to be appropriate, it is unclear whether he satisfies the diagnostic criteria for either antisocial personality disorder or multiple-personality disorder. When the hermetic logic of satanic theory is stripped away by historical and forensic-psychological analysis, it will be easier to describe what is going through the mind of this cannibal serial killer. Using the theories of Melanie Klein, Harry Guntrip, D W Winnicott, M Khan, and Otto Kernberg, this article explores the psychoanalytical analysis of why Arif is compelled to kill and eat parts of some of his victims. Locked in the paranoid-schizoid position, he relies heavily on schizoid defences, such as splitting and projective identification, but is unable to avoid psychotic breaks with reality to re-enact his early traumas. Through his reunion with his brother Farman Ali, Arif attempts the process of reparation and an entry into the depressive position. But this will not suffice for readers to understand what goes on inside this ‘evil’ mind. Graphic and stomach turning, those reported as cannibals are found to have psychopathic personalities. They live alone and kill/eat because they enjoy it, and find eating people absolutely satisfying. Some cannibals are psychotic. Richard Trenton Chase was a serial killer who consumed his victims’ blood because he believed space aliens were turning his blood to powder. Richard was a paranoid-schizophrenic. However, most cannibals are not psychotic. They know very well what they are doing.
Mohammad Arif appears to have a clear pattern. The killer preys on defenceless victims and chooses drugs to subdue them or kills his victims in their sleep. Cutting up the meat is sexually exciting and plays a part in elaborating his fantasy. Witnessing the flesh makes them feel all-powerful and capable of something very few people have ever done. Most serial killers do not eat their victims, so the cannibal is in a class by himself. This gives him godly feelings of narcissism. It provides him with a rush of excitement. This produces a euphoric state that activates the pleasure centres in the brain. Each cut brings more good feelings so it is common to find pieces of the body in the vicinity. The process is exciting and rewarding. For someone like Mohammad Arif who is isolated, it fills a void. Most cannibals are extreme loners. They do not have friends, but they may have an accomplice to help them get to the victims. Fear of getting caught is the anxiety and they are bitter about it. Killing and eating a victim ensures that the offender is never alone. He ‘has’ the victims with him at all times. Retaining the head of a two-day-old baby is like the prize till the end and this helps the cannibal retain a sense of control over his life. To himself, he has demonstrated mastery over another human being. The victim is now part of him as a trophy. This is intoxicating and drives him to do it again.
Through a legal lens, where evil and crime are synonymous, Arif is ‘evil’ because he is a criminal. His actions, the actus reus of his crimes (murders and cannibalism) are condemned by society, but it is Arif’s culpable mental state, his mens rea (‘evil mind’) that truly designates him as evil. The killing of a human being under some circumstances (e.g. in wartime or during a lawful execution) is non-criminal, but the killing of another human being with malice aforethought is murder, and murder involving the kind of mens rea evident in Arif’s deliberate crimes is first-degree murder, the most culpable variety. While it might not be possible to see ‘evil’ in this individual’s genetic blueprint, the evil within him is predictable and determinable. It might even be possible for psychiatrists to measure or identify this kind of evil. Psychiatrists are medically trained and programmed to use the scientific method, contrasting it against an archaic, animistic worldview that spiritual forces such as ‘evil’ are responsible for crime, which may be misleading. Criminologists disagree about what causes crime but identify a number of competing theories, ranging from defective biology to social learning, from rational choice to neuropsychological disorder. But almost all criminologists, as social scientists, agree on at least one fundamental axiom: “Crime is caused by knowable influence and the aetiology of crime can be known.”

The writer is a member of the Diplomate American Board of Medical Psychotherapists Dip.Soc Studies, member Int’l Association of Forensic Criminologists, associate professor Psychiatry and consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at the Huntercombe Group United Kingdom. He can be reached at fawad_shifa@yahoo.com