French police have arrested a man in connection with multiple murders after a campaign to clean up Paris’ notoriously dirty river, the Seine, uncovered four dead bodies lurking beneath the waters. The corpses were spotted on August 13, when a train passenger noticed a body floating in the water and notified authorities. The discovery prompted further investigation, during which at least three more bodies were discovered “in an advanced state of decomposition.” One of the corpses, however, was “relatively well-preserved,” which allowed authorities to identify the victim and arrest a 24-year-old man of Algerian descent in connection with the murders. “There are three men of African descent and a fourth of North African descent,” prosecutors revealed, with one of the victims appearing to die of strangulation while the other sustained “violent injuries.” The suspect remains in custody. A mass cleanup of the Seine was launched after last year’s summer Olympics, when athletes swimming in the polluted waters claimed to have “felt and seen things” in the river and officials were forced to postpone several events due to poor water quality.
Read it at Le Monde
