MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Murdered French women suspects’ genetic samples sent to Buenos Aires for DNA testing

Salta police is convinced the killers are among the group of six suspects

Genetic samples extracted from the six suspects arrested in connection to the murder of two French tourists in the northern Argentina province of Salta were submitted Tuesday to the Biochemistry School at the University of Buenos Aires.

Salta judicial sources reported that the decision was made by Judge Martín Pérez, who ordered the samples sent to Buenos Aires so they could be compared with the ones extracted from the bodies of Cassandre Bouvier (29) and Houria Moumni (24).

The samples belong to the men arrested last Saturday, gardener Santos Clemente Vera (32), who is suspected of being one of the aggressors, Gustavo Lasi (24), who’s also suspected of being involved in the case and presented her girlfriend with some objects that belonged to the victims, and Walter Lasi (42), who had asked another suspect in the case to hide away a firearm for him.

Samples from Omar Ramos (47) who hid the weapon, and siblings María Fernanda (24) and Federico Cañizares (23) were also submitted.

A digital camera and a cell phone belonging to one of the victims were found in María Fernanda’s home. She claimed her boyfriend gave them to her.

The samples belonging to the suspects join the ones extracted from the other two men previously arrested in connection to the crime, Daniel Vilte (24) and Francisco Ariel Tejeda, the first person arrested, who was later released after lack of evidence.

DNA studies will allow investigators to identify the genetic profile of the perpetrators of the murders, since they will be crosschecked with hair and semen samples found on the body of one of the victims.

The two French scholars and experts in Latin American affairs apparently were surprised in the forest by three men with the purpose of robbery, then raped and finally shot with a calibre-22 weapon.

Relatives of the victims travelled to Salta to meet the Judge with the case and then returned to Paris with the remains of the victims.

The insanity of the killings at the relatively calm tourist province of Salta has shocked Argentina and France. President Nicholas Sarkozy has expressed a special interest in the case.