Suspect held in French student slayings

LONDON, July 5 (UPI) -- Police have arrested a 21-year-old man in connection with the "brutal and horrific" south London slayings of two French college students.

Scotland Yard told The Daily Telegraph that officers arrested a suspect on a street in southeast London early Saturday morning and was questioning him about the knife slayings of Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, both 23, whose badly mutilated bodies were found in their burning rented apartment on a quiet London cul-de-sac.

Authorities said the pair were stabbed nearly 250 times while bound and gagged, a crime Scotland Yard described as a one of the most "frenzied, brutal and horrific" slayings it had ever seen.

They said the killings happened last Sunday night, and afterwards the apartment was doused in gasoline or a similar accelerant and set on fire.

The two students were considered among the brightest up-and-coming young scientists of their generation, attending London's Imperial College on scholarships. They were students at Polytech Clermont-Ferrand in central France, the Telegraph said.

Scotland Yard officials said the slaying might have been the work of a "crazed" drug addicted burglar.