Togo probes six beheadings

2007-09-28 08:20

Lome - Officials are trying to connect six beheadings in Togo to a suspected network of killers in neighbouring Benin, police said Thursday.

All six victims were beheaded over a two-day period earlier this month. The killings were strikingly similar, leading investigators to believe they were the hand of one serial killer, or one criminal group.

Colonel Damehane Yark, the commander of Togo's national police, said security forces were working to establish a link between four recently arrested suspects and a network of killers in Benin.

The four suspects in Togolese custody were allegedly led by 37-year-old Hounguiya Roger, an ex-convict who was a native of Benin, said police.

According to Yark, Roger had confessed killing a 12-year-old schoolgirl, the youngest of the six beheading victims.

Roger, Yark said, had also confessed to belonging to a network operated by Jean Goudjo of Benin. Goudjo was wanted by Benin Police for committing similar crimes there, said Yark.

In Benin, police reported that a teenage girl was beheaded in Houeyogbe, a village 65km from the capital, Cotonou.

She was beheaded at the same time that killers struck in the Vo and Lacs districts of Togo, provinces that border Benin.

Yark said: "We have reinforced security patrols in the two villages in the Vo and Lacs districts in southern Togo where the recent killings occurred."

- AP