An alleged serial killer who terrorized the east of Paris in the early 1990s went on trial in Paris Monday accused of the murders and rapes of seven young women.
Guy Georges, 38, who was arrested in 1998 on the basis of fingerprints and DNA tests linking him to three of the murders, faces life in prison if found guilty.
According to the charge sheet, between 1991 and 1997 Georges stalked his victims -- all single women aged between 19 and 27 -- in Paris' Bastille area and attacked them in parking lots or at their apartments.
After tying them up with tape he allegedly raped them before slitting their throats with a knife. The killer's tell-tale signature was to cut each victim's bra in the front.
Although Georges admitted to most of the killings after his arrest, his attorney said he planned to plead innocent during the trial.
Among those set to testify during the two-week trial are families of the victims and four women who survived after allegedly being attacked by Georges.
The manhunt to arrest Georges lasted several years and was one of the most intensive launched in France. It met with severe criticism, however, for the way police bungled the probe.
Georges' arrest, for example, was delayed for several months because police failed to match DNA evidence gathered at the scene of four of the killings with DNA taken from Georges.
At least one of the murders was committed while Georges was serving a 10-year prison sentence for various offenses. At the time he was on parole and had to report back to prison every night.
The son of a French woman and a black American who used to work on NATO bases in the Paris region, Georges was abandoned by his parents at birth and was raised by a foster family in the central region of Angers.
He became known to police during his teenage years when he assaulted several woman threatening them with a knife. He was convicted and sentenced at the time for several of these offenses -- PARIS (AFP)
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