Family plea to French students' killer

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Family plea to French students' killer

The parents of one of the two men murdered in London urge their attacker to come forward

• Mark Townsend, crime correspondent
• The Observer,
• Sunday July 6, 2008

Police were last night questioning a man in connection with the brutal murders of two French biochemistry students in a South London bedsit as the parents of one of the victims, Gabriel Ferez, issued a poignant plea for the killer to come forward.

Officers arrested a 21-year-old man in the early hours of yesterday from a street close to the New Cross flat where Ferez and Laurent Bonomo were found gagged, bound and stabbed nearly 250 times before being set on fire. He is being interrogated at a police station in south-east London.
Scotland Yard sources last night said they could not rule out further arrests and confirmed they were still examining the theory that the double murder may be linked to the theft of two games consoles and a laptop computer from the flat six days before the students were murdered.
News of the arrest was followed by a statement from Gabriel's parents, Françoise and Olivier Ferez, pleading for the person or persons responsible to turn themselves in. It said: 'You will not be able to live in hiding forever. You may be scared and feel like a coward, but you must recognise this terrible mistake you made.'

Officers had been keen to track down the burglar who had earlier targeted the home of the French students, both 23, although officers would not reveal whether the man arrested at 3.40am yesterday is the thief.

Another line of inquiry involves the possibility that Bonomo and Ferez were tortured for their Pin numbers, although the viciousness of their injuries baffles and shocks detectives. Bonomo, from Velaux, near Marseille, who was a student in the field of proteins that cause infectious diseases, had been stabbed 196 times; more than half the wounds were inflicted after he died. Ferez, from Prouzel, near Amiens, who planned to become an expert in eco-friendly fuels, suffered 47 injuries. Both had been doing research at Imperial College and had arrived in London at the end of May for a placement due to last three or four months.

Ferez had travelled to spend the evening at his friend's flat on the night they were murdered. It is believed the men were dead before the fire started.

Tomorrow a silent march in memory of the men is to be held at the Polytech Clermont-Ferrand, the university they attended in France.

[source]


...