France murder victim identified after 20 years and suspect arrested

Interpol

A woman whose body was discovered in France more than 20 years ago has been identified by police, and a suspect in her murder arrested.

Hakima Boukerouis is the fifth woman to be named through an international police campaign called Operation Identify Me, which was launched in 2023.

Her mutilated body was discovered in a concealed water butt in northeastern France in January 2005, but police were unable to identify her.

The case marks the first time since the campaign launched that a suspect has been arrested.

In a statement on Tuesday, global policing agency Interpol said a breakthrough came when the victim was identified by French police using "familial DNA searching".

"This identification underscores how important it is to keep investigating unresolved cold cases," Interpol's secretary general Valdecy Urquiza said.

"As part of the Identify Me campaign, the efforts of the French authorities have helped identify a murder victim whose case had remained open for many years."

French police have not named the suspect and Interpol said limited details about the case could be shared because investigations and judicial proceedings were ongoing.

Boukerouis had previously been known to police as "the woman with the Richmond dental crown" because of a type of recent expensive dental work she had, which police believed may have been carried out in Germany.

Her body was discovered in the village of Saint-Quirin, tied up and wrapped in black rubbish bags.

Local media reports in France say she was 34 years old at the time of her murder and was born in Algeria.

Boukerouis was one of 47 women included in Operation Identify Me - an Interpol campaign seeking to find the names of women who had been murdered or died in suspicious or unexplained circumstances in six European countries.

Interpol "black notices" - seeking information about unidentified bodies - have been released to the public for the first time as part of the campaign, and records such as fingerprints have been shared with police forces around the world. The initiative has also seen renewed publicity and police attention for the cold cases.

Interpol says increased global migration and human trafficking has led to more people being reported missing outside of their countries, which can make identifying bodies more challenging.

The first woman to be identified through the initiative was British citizen Rita Roberts, 31, who was murdered in Belgium in 1992. Her family identified her after seeing a photograph of her tattoo on the BBC.

A woman found dead in a poultry shed in Spain in 2018 was then identified as Ainoha Izaga Ibieta Lima, 33, from Paraguay in South America.

In September, a woman whose body was discovered by the side of a road in a different part of Spain in 2005 was named as Russian national Liudmila Zavada, 31.

The following month, a woman whose body was found on a Dutch beach in 2004 was named as German citizen Eva Maria Pommer, 35.

Police are still trying to find the identities of another 42 women found dead in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain.

The majority of them are murder victims, believed to have been aged between 15 and 30 years old. Some were killed decades ago.