{"id":326575,"date":"2026-04-30T00:14:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T18:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=326575"},"modified":"2026-04-30T00:14:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T18:44:48","slug":"woman-killed-in-france-finally-identified-after-20-years-and-murder-suspect-arrested-news-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/30\/woman-killed-in-france-finally-identified-after-20-years-and-murder-suspect-arrested-news-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman killed in France finally identified after 20 years and murder suspect arrested | News World"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hakima Boukerouis was a mum of 4, long assumed to have abandoned her family (Picture: Interpol)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A lady whose body was discovered in France greater than 20 years ago has been identified \u2013 and a suspect in her murder arrested.<\/p>\n

Hakima Boukerouis is the fifth woman to be named through a world police campaign called Operation Discover Me.<\/p>\n

Her body, tied up and wrapped in bin bags, was discovered in a rainwater barrel in Saint-Quirin, a village in northeastern France, on January 7, 2005. <\/p>\n

The barrel was seen in October 2004, floating within the Red Saar, a river about two miles north of the village, based on an Interpol \u2018black notice<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

However the breakthrough got here when the victim was identified using familial DNA searching, Interpol said <\/a>yesterday. <\/p>\n

Interpol said Boukerouis was aged between 35 and 47, though French news outlet TF1 <\/a>says she was a 34-year-old from Algeria.<\/p>\n

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Start your day informed with Metro’s News Updates<\/strong> newsletter or get Breaking News <\/strong>alerts the moment it happens. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Suspect is victim\u2019s \u2018ex-husband\u2019, French media says<\/h2>\n

Boukerouis\u2019s 4 children had long assumed that their mother had abandoned them, their family lawyer, Alexandre Bouthier, said. <\/p>\n

They were minors on the time of her disappearance, Bouthier told Radio France<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He said: \u2018Greater than 20 years later, they arrive knocking on their door to inform them, \u201cListen, now we’ve the reason: your mother is dead. She was present in a barrel and hadn\u2019t been identified. <\/p>\n

\u2018\u201dIn other words, we were aware of a body, but we couldn\u2019t discover it on the time.\u201d\u2018<\/p>\n

Boukerouis\u2019s husband was reportedly <\/a>arrested in June 2025 on suspicion of ordering her killing. <\/p>\n

Bouthier continued: \u2018\u201dToday, we\u2019ve been capable of achieve this through DNA, and it’s indeed your mother and your father appears to be involved on this murder.\u201d\u2018<\/p>\n

He was released under judicial supervision three months later as a consequence of his age and health. Prosecutors declined to provide an update. <\/p>\n

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Interpol reissued a black notice yesterday to say she had been named (Picture: Interpol)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With police unable to ID her, Boukerouis became often known as \u2018The lady with the Richmond dental crown\u2019 due to her expensive dental work.<\/p>\n

Detectives had long suspected she was from Eastern Europe or Russia, \u2018as a consequence of the numerous young Russian women who were present in the world on the time\u2019, the Interpol notice said.<\/p>\n

Operation Identity Me seeks to\u00a0find the names of ladies who’ve been murdered or died in suspicious or unexplained circumstances.<\/p>\n

Interpol secretary general Valdecy Urquiza said: \u2018This identification underscores how essential it’s to maintain investigating unresolved cold cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018As a part of the Discover Me campaign, the efforts of the French authorities have helped discover a murder victim whose case had remained open for a few years.\u2019<\/p>\n

Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

For more stories like this, <\/strong>check our news page<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Hakima Boukerouis was a mum of 4, long assumed to have abandoned her family (Picture: Interpol) A lady whose body was discovered in France greater than 20 years ago has been identified \u2013 and a suspect in her murder arrested. Hakima Boukerouis is the fifth woman to be named through a world police campaign called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":326576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20691],"tags":[3550,582,9445,6433,3026,2131,395,2132,3353,813,1303],"class_list":["post-326575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-arrested","tag-finally","tag-france","tag-identified","tag-killed","tag-murder","tag-news","tag-suspect","tag-woman","tag-world","tag-years"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326575"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326578,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326575\/revisions\/326578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}