Caroline murder trial in June

RENNES, France, Jan 22 (AFP) – The trial of a Spanish man charged with sexually assaulting and murdering a 13-year-old British schoolgirl in France will begin on June 2, judicial officials said on Thursday.

Francisco Arce Montes, 52, is accused of suffocating Caroline Dickinson in her dormitory at a youth hostel in the town of Pleine-Fougeres in the northwestern region of Brittany in July 1996, while she was on a school trip.

The case caused considerable anguish in both Britain and France and the subsequent investigation into the murder was criticised for appearing to make little progress.

But the breakthrough came when a US police officer on holiday in Europe read an account of the Dickinson case and made the connection with the arrest in Florida of Montes, a former waiter.

He had been arrested in Miami in March 2001 after allegedly breaking into a woman’s bedroom and committing a lewd act.

The French authorities asked for a DNA sample. When Montes refused, French investigators analyzed samples already taken by their US counterparts, and found a match with semen taken from Dickinson’s body.

State authorities there decided to drop the case against him in order to facilitate his extradition to France which took place in November 2001.

Montes is currently being held at a prison hospital on the outskirts of Paris where he is said to be suffering from psychiatric problems.The trial will take place at a court in this northwestern city.

Subject: France news