LONDON: The parents of one of the French students knifed to death in a torched London flat pleaded on Sunday for the killer or killers to give themselves up.

"To those who committed this crime against our son and his friend, we say it is possible you did not anticipate how this might turn out," Francoise and Olivier Ferez said, one week on from the deaths of their son Gabriel and his friend Laurent Bonomo.

"We plead with you to turn yourselves in to the police. You will not be able to live in hiding forever. You may be scared and feel like a coward, but you must recognise this terrible mistake you made.

"Rest assured that we will not leave you in peace," they said in a statement through London's Metropolitan Police.

Detectives were still questioning a 21-year-old man arrested on Saturday after the bodies of the two 23-year-olds were found in a burnt-out London flat.

The bound and battered bodies of Ferez and Bonomo, biochemists studying on an exchange programme in London from Clermont-Ferrand in central France, were found in the ground floor flat in New Cross, south-east London.

Bonomo had been stabbed nearly 200 times, while Ferez suffered around 50 wounds in a prolonged ordeal, unidentified police sources quoted by the domestic Press Association news agency said.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Duthie, leading the investigation, has said the pair was dead before the fire took hold, adding that they were knifed in the head, neck, torso and back.

"The more we find out about them, the more we find they were good, honest, hard-working young men – very intelligent, never caused anybody any problems, they were well liked and come from respectable families," he said.

The statement from Ferez's parents said the attack on their son may have been committed by "someone or some people whose psychological state of mind was disturbed".

They urged any witnesses to come forward, stressing: "Do not feel useless or like an 'informer'."

One week on from the killings, officers investigating the double murder were to patrol the streets around the crime scene, appealing for information from local members of the public.

The Metropolitan Police have put 40 officers on the case.

The Met has refused to comment on press reports that a local resident saw two men hammering on the flat window just before the explosion and fire at the property, and that bloodstained clothes were found nearby.

"We have plenty of forensic opportunities which will help us identify the killer or killers," police told the News of the World newspaper.

"It would be almost impossible for one man alone to inflict that level of injuries."

The Sunday Times newspaper said the arrested man was known to the local police and was arrested close to the crime scene following several tip-offs from the public.

The Observer newspaper said that the police had not ruled out further arrests and were still considering potential links between a burglary at the flat six days before the killings as their main line of inquiry.

A laptop was stolen during the June 23 incident. Police believe two Sony PSP games consoles were stolen when the students were killed. However, they now consider the victims' bank cards as "missing" rather than "stolen".

The deaths coincided with growing concern about knife crime and gang culture in London, which newly elected Conservative mayor Boris Johnson and Metropolitan Police chief Ian Blair have vowed to tackle.

Two people were stabbed in central London on Saturday night and police said on Sunday they had arrested a fifth person in connection with the 18th youth to die in violence this year in the British capital.


- AFP/so