Gagged, stabbed and set ablaze

LONDON: Two French students have been killed in London in one of the most horrific incidents of violence ever seen by Scotland Yard.

Biochemistry students and close friends Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez were bound, gagged and stabbed 246 times before the bodies were set alight in a flat on Sunday.

“This was a frenzied, brutal and horrific attack - I have never seen injuries inflicted to bodies like this before,” said detective chief inspector Mick Duthie of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command. “Everyone working on this case including myself, senior detectives and support staff, have been deeply shocked by what we have seen,” he added.

Officers said they were at a loss to explain such an incomprehensible crime. Theories included a burglary gone wrong, a ritualistic killing or a case of mistaken identity. They called for public help in finding the killer or killers.

Bonomo and Ferez, both 23-year-old, had come to Imperial College in London for a three-month exchange programme working on a DNA research project. They came in May from the Ecole Polytechnique de Clermont Ferrand in the Auvergne region of central France where they were in the second year of their Masters degree.

The “brilliant” students were due to return home this month. The police know that Bonomo had spoken to his fiancée in France at 1am on the day of his death.