POLICE believe a decomposing body found in the search for Daniel Burke is the missing ex-Brit soldier.
Cops today told heartbroken father Kevin – whose Ukrainian volunteer soldier son had been missing for five weeks – that a body unearthed earlier this week is likely to be his son’s.
They believe he was killed by unsurvivable gunshot wounds to the head and chest, fired from the gun of a fellow volunteer who is now the prime suspect.
Officers will conduct DNA tests on the remains in the coming days to confirm the body’s identity.
The remains were too decayed to identify visually, detectives previously said.
The former paratrooper from Manchester, 36, had a number of distinctive tattoos and formed the Dark Angels group last year – a British-led team of international volunteers.
He was last seen in Zaporizhzia on August 11, more than 15 miles from the closest frontline.
Cops are said to have identified a prime suspect – Australian-Lebanese fighter Nourine Abdelfetah.
The suspect, who has been quizzed by Ukrainian cops, was allegedly given the nickname “Jihadi Adam” by fellow volunteers after previously fighting in Syria.
Investigators now believe that Daniel and “Adam” – different from his real name – travelled to a firing range near their camp in Zaporizhzhia, where the Brit was fatally shot.
The suspect allegedly told cops the incident was an accident and denied claims he had turned on his fellow volunteer.
Mr Abdelfetah previously said they returned to the city that evening and he dropped Burke off at his apartment.
But Police searched the flat in the city and found no signs of a break-in or a struggle.
Specialist officers from Greater Manchester Police spent hours with Kevin Burke at his home updating the heartbroken father on the latest developments.
He had previously told The Sun of his boy’s vanishing: “The worst thing is not knowing.
”It is completely out of character for Daniel to just disappear like this and we are really grateful to the police in Zaporizhzhia for their efforts to investigate so many different lines of enquiry.”
In June, Burke, who spent two years in the 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, led a dare-devil mission to blitz a Russian armoured vehicle with a Javelin anti-tank missile in the bloodbath battle of Kherson.
The unit began the commando-style raid after troops from Ukraine’s 28th Brigade gave them an £80,000 fire-and-forget missile.
Body cam footage showed the four-man team creeping up to a ridge line to fire the US-made guided weapon.
But Burke, who said he was funded by an American donor, had later shifted his focus to rescue missions and evacuated stranded civilians from bomb-blitzed eastern Bakhmut and the Zaporizhzhia frontline.
September 17, 2023 at 03:41AM
from The Sun