Argentinian police arrest six in connection with students' murder

It brings the total number of suspects in custody to seven following the arrest of 24-year-old Daniel Vilte on Tuesday. Vilte reportedly tried to sell a .22 calibre revolver in the weeks following the murders. The weapon was similar to the one used to shoot dead Houria Moumni, 23 and Cassandre Bouvier, 29 in the northern province of Salta.

A police spokesman told AFP that officers had seized the gun, which they believe was used in the attack from a neighbour of one of the six arrested yesterday.

“At the same time as the arrests, material evidence was seized, which is considered important to the inquiry,” the police spokesman Marcelo Baez said.

Police spent the whole of yesterday making detailed inquiries in Salta and the neighbouring area of San Lorenzo, near to the Quebrada nature reserve, where the bodies of the two French students were found.

Three men and a woman, who were taken into custody yesterday morning, will appear in court tomorrow, Martin Pérez, the judge who is leading the investigation told reporters.

Authorities have also announced that they have found a camera and mobile phones belonging to the victims. According to local sources, calls made with the mobile phones of Bouvier and Moumni led to the arrests.

The local news site El Tribuno de Salta has reported that a 24-year-old policeman, his wife and his father in law are amongst those arrested yesterday.

Post mortem examinations and tests to determine when the two women died will continue for the next 10 days, after preliminary results proved ambiguous.

Witnesses reported that they heard gunshots in the area where the two bodies were discovered. One witnesses said that they heard the shots on the 16th of July; the day after the girls went missing.

This testimony contradicted the original autopsy report, which suggested that the two women were murdered three days before their bodies were discovered.

Police say that the date of death is key to discovering whether the students were kidnapped and held before they were murdered.

Tom Donnelly