UK NEWS

MAN CHARGED WITH STUDENT MURDERS

Laurent Bonomo (left) and Gabriel Ferez were killed in a frenzied attack

Wednesday July 9,2008

By Emily Garnham for express.co.uk

A MAN has been charged with the brutal double murder of two French students killed in a London bedsit.

Nigel Edward Farmer, of no fixed address, will appear at Greenwich magistrates’ court tomorrow, police said.

The 33-year-old has been charged with murder, arson and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The badly burned bodies of 23-year-old French students Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo were found after an explosion at a rented bedsit in south-east London ten days ago.

Investigators found they had been bound, gagged, tortured and stabbed before petrol or a similar flammable liquid was splashed on and around their bodies.

Farmer, who is unemployed, handed himself in to a south London police station in the early hours of yesterday morning. He was questioned after receiving hospital treatment for burns.

Police confirmed yesterday that forensic searches at the severely damaged ground-floor property in Sterling Gardens, New Cross, could continue for several weeks.

Detectives have previously said the students may have been attacked by more than one assailant.

A 21-year-old man arrested on Saturday was also questioned over the murders but was later released without charge.

Mr Bonomo was stabbed nearly 200 times and up to 80 of the wounds were inflicted after he was dead, while his friend suffered nearly 50 knife wounds.