Police were last night probing the mysterious death of a man in an Aberdeen flat.
The Eastern European man, in his 40s, is believed to have suffered stab wounds at the ground floor flat on Balnagask Avenue, Torry.
A huge police investigation was launched at the sprawling four story-building, however police were last night still treating the incident as “unexplained”.
A huge police cordon sectioned off parts of the building last night, whilst shocked residents gathered on the surrounding streets.
The ambulance service was the first to respond to the incident, after receiving a call at 2pm.
The service sent a rapid response car and an ambulance to the scene, but the man was thought to be dead on their arrival.
An ambulance spokeswoman said: “We didn’t transport anyone to hospital.”
Detectives and police forensics teams could be seen going in and out of the flat all evening.
Both sides of the building had police tape surrounding them, with several officers standing guard.
A local resident, who lives in an adjoining flat to the deceased man, described going out to walk the dog with his wife yesterday afternoon and returning to find police surrounding the buildings.
He said: “We’d just taken the dog around the park, and that must have been the back of 12pm, I came in and heard some sort of first response paramedics, then when we came back there was a CID van sitting there.
“Then I looked further up and there was more and more police cars. That was 2pm. I have never seen anything like this here.
“My understanding is that it’s one of these flats for the homeless and there’s a couple people sharing one flat.
“I don’t know much about what’s going on. I don’t know who was in the flat, I have seen a few new faces walking past.”
Another local man – who was working on his car near the building when police began to arrive – said: “At about 2pm police started putting the tape up. I said ‘that’s definitely something serious’.”
He added there was “always something going on” in the area, but added “nothing like that” had taken place while he had lived there.
Last night, a police spokesman said: “Police Scotland were made aware of the death of a male at a property in the Balnagask Avenue area of Torry at around 2.10pm on Monday.
“The death is being treated as unexplained and inquiries are at an early stage to establish the circumstances surrounding the death.”
Last night, Torry and Ferryhill councillor, Alan Donnelly, described the man’s death as “sad news”.
He said: “I’m sad to hear this happening and my condolences go to his family and friends, we have had a number of Eastern Europeans in Torry.
“Some of them struggle to get on their feet with the struggle of coming to Aberdeen and finding a job, a lot of them struggle and fall by the wayside.
“The council needs to help communities so it’s a lot easier to combat this.
“It sends a bad signal as well, there’s a large Eastern European community (in Torry) who are hard working. It’s really sad news.”