France probes murder of 12-year-old girl in Paris

[October 18, 2022]  PARIS (Reuters) - French police are investigating the murder of a 12-year-old girl whose body was found last week near her home in eastern Paris and a young suspect has been detained, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Tuesday.

Flowers with a hand-written message which reads "Rest in peace little Lola, you will stay in my heart forever" are displayed outside the building where a 12-year-old schoolgirl Lola lived, who was brutally killed and whose body was stuffed in a trunk in the 19th district in Paris, France, October 18, 2022. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

The suspect was a woman under 20 who had been staying in France illegally, he said.

"The suspect ... is not already known to the police. She is under 20 years of age. She regularly came over on to our national territory as a student. About a month ago, she was told to leave our national territory," Darmanin told RTL radio.

He did not give further details. Newspapers, citing police and judicial sources, said the suspect was Algerian.

The Paris prosecutor's department said the girl's body was discovered late on Friday near her home in the 19th Arrondissement.

Lawyer Alexandre Silva, representing the suspect, told BFM TV that he could not comment on the case.

(Reporting by Thomas Denis and Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Nick Macfie)

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