32-year-old suspect arrested in stabbing of multiple people on UK train: Police

32-year-old suspect arrested in stabbing of multiple people on UK train: Police
32-year-old suspect arrested in stabbing of multiple people on UK train: Police
Douglas Sacha/Getty Images

(LONDON) — A 32-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder for allegedly attacking multiple people with a knife aboard a train headed to London on Saturday evening, according to police, a crime the prime minister called an “appalling incident.”

In a statement shortly after the attack, British Transport Police (BTP) said two people had been arrested. On Sunday afternoon, however, police said a 35-year-old London man initially taken into custody had been released after investigators determined he was not involved.

The victim who was most seriously injured in the attack is a member of the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) staff, who was stabbed when he intervened in an attempt to stop the attack.

Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Cundy of the BTP praised the railway staff member on Sunday afternoon for protecting other passengers, saying security video aboard the train captured the employee’s courageous actions.

“Having viewed the CCTV from the train, the actions of the member of rail staff were nothing short of heroic and undoubtedly saved people’s lives,” Cundy said.

The LNER staffer remained hospitalized on Sunday evening in “life-threatening condition,” according to the BTP. Five other people who were hospitalized with stabbing injuries have been treated and released, according to police.

BTP Superintendent John Loveless said a total of 10 people were taken to hospitals by ambulance, and that an eleventh alleged victim went to a hospital on their own later Sunday night. Initially, Loveless said nine people appeared to have life-threatening injuries when they were taken from the scene.

The BTP said in a statement that it began receiving reports at 7:42 p.m. on Sunday about the stabbings aboard the LNER train that was headed from the city of Doncaster to London’s King’s Cross station.

“Our investigation is moving at pace and we are confident we are not looking for anyone else in connection to the incident,” Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Cundy of the BTP said on Sunday afternoon.

Armed officers boarded the train when it made an unscheduled stop at Huntingdon, roughly 70 miles north of London, and arrested the suspect, whose name was not immediately released, according to Cundy.

“A knife was recovered by officers at the scene,” the BTP statement said Sunday afternoon.

The suspect is from Peterborough in the county of Cambridgeshire, about 74 miles from London, according to Cundy, who also said investigators believe the suspect boarded the train at the Peterborough station.

“As would be expected, specialist detectives are looking into the background of the suspect we have in custody and the events that led up to the attack,” Cundy said.

“This was a horrific attack that has had a wide impact,” Cundy added. “My thoughts and those of everyone in the British Transport Police are with those injured and their families — especially the brave member of the rail staff whose family are being supported by specialist officers.”

The UK’s Counter Terrorism Policing is supporting the investigation to establish “the full circumstances and motivation for this incident,” the BTP said in a statement.

“At this stage, there is nothing to suggest this is a terrorist incident,” Loveless said. “At this early stage, it would not be appropriate to speculate on the causes of the incident.”

Speaking at the scene of the attack on Sunday morning, Loveless said the suspect was arrested within eight minutes of the first emergency call being received.

“The appalling incident on a train near Huntingdon is deeply concerning,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement on social media. “My thoughts are with all those affected, and my thanks go to the emergency services for their response.”

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said in a post on X that she was receiving “regular updates” on the investigation.

“Two suspects have been immediately arrested and taken into custody,” she wrote, adding, “I urge people to avoid comment and speculation at this early stage.”

King Charles III, meanwhile, said in a statement posted to the Royal Family’s official X account, “My wife and I were truly appalled and shocked to hear of the dreadful knife attack that took place on board a train in Cambridgeshire last night.”

“Our deepest sympathy and thoughts are with all those affected, and their loved ones,” the king said. “We are particularly grateful to the emergency services for their response to this awful incident.”

ABC News’ Rashid Haddou and Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.

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2 more charged in Louvre jewel heist, 3 released from custody

2 more charged in Louvre jewel heist, 3 released from custody
2 more charged in Louvre jewel heist, 3 released from custody
Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images)

(NEW YORK) — Two people arrested in the investigation into the Louvre Museum robbery last month have been formally charged in connection with the case, according to the Paris Public Prosecutor’s office. Both denied their involvement in the robbery.

Two others were charged in connection with the heist this week.

French authorities identified the new suspects as a 37-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman. They were charged with organized robbery and conspiracy to commit organized robbery and remanded into custody.

Additionally, three of the five people arrested on Oct. 29 have been released from custody, prosecutors said.

On Oct. 19, four masked thieves stole eight pieces of jewelry from the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum, that were valued at $102 million. The robbery, which authorities say took just seven minutes, sparked a national outcry and nationwide manhunt.

The stolen jewels remain missing, authorities say.

Last week, one suspect was arrested at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport while trying to board a plane bound for Algeria, police said, while the second suspect was detained as he was about to travel to Mali.

The investigation is ongoing.

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UN accuses US of breaching international law with deadly airstrikes on boats in Caribbean and Pacific

UN accuses US of breaching international law with deadly airstrikes on boats in Caribbean and Pacific
UN accuses US of breaching international law with deadly airstrikes on boats in Caribbean and Pacific
The logo of the United Nations at the General Debate of the UN General Assembly in New York. Over 140 heads of state and government are expected to attend the world’s largest diplomatic event over several days. Photo: Kay Nietfeld/dpa (Photo by Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images)

(NEW YORK) — The United Nations said Friday that U.S. airstrikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean violate international human rights law and must stop.

In a statement to ABC News, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said that the attacks breach international law and called for an investigation into the strikes.

“These attacks – and their mounting human cost – are unacceptable. The U.S. must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats, whatever the criminal conduct alleged against them,” Türk said.

“Under international human rights law, the intentional use of lethal force is only permissible as a last resort against individuals who pose an imminent threat to life,” he added. “Based on the very sparse information provided publicly by the U.S. authorities, none of the individuals on the targeted boats appeared to pose an imminent threat to the lives of others or otherwise justified the use of lethal armed force against them under international law.”

White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told ABC News that President Donald Trump is working to eliminate threats to U.S. security.

“The UN has failed at everything from operating an escalator to ending wars — it’s ridiculous that they are now lecturing President Trump and running cover for evil narcoterrorists trying to murder Americans. The President acted in line with the laws of armed conflict to protect our country from those trying to bring poison to our shores, and he is delivering on his promise to take on the cartels and eliminate these national security threats from destroying lives,” Kelly said.

Since September, President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have executed over a dozen military strikes against boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, arguing they are anti-drug and counter-terrorism measures.

Over 60 people have allegedly been killed in the strikes, according to U.S. officials.

In announcing the latest and most deadly strike Wednesday, Hegseth said the U.S. “carried out a lethal kinetic strike on yet another narco-trafficking vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization in the Eastern Pacific.”

“This vessel, like all the others, was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” he added.

This is the first time the U.N. has condemned the strikes.

“The United States should investigate and, if necessary, prosecute and punish individuals accused of serious crimes in accordance with the fundamental rule of law principles of due process and fair trial, for which the U.S. has long stood,” a statement from his office reads.

Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for Türk, mirrored this sentiment at a Friday U.N. briefing.

“These attacks and their mounting human cost are unacceptable. The U.S. must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats,” she said.

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Aid worker in Gaza describes signs of alleged torture on bodies of dead Palestinians

Aid worker in Gaza describes signs of alleged torture on bodies of dead Palestinians
Aid worker in Gaza describes signs of alleged torture on bodies of dead Palestinians
Abdallah F.s. Alattar/Anadolu via Getty Images

[Editor’s Note: This story includes graphic descriptions of alleged torture.]

(NEW YORK) — The bodies of some unidentified Palestinians handed over by Israel as part of the ceasefire agreement showed severe signs of torture, according to an aid worker who inspected at least 10 bodies.

“People’s bodies were covered in scars and what looked like open wounds. … It was just horrific,” Moureen Kaki, a Palestinian American activist and aid worker with medical charity Glia, told ABC News.

The bodies had signs of binding the hands and feet, contortion of limbs, cut off fingertips and disfigured heads, according to Kaki. Their hands had “gone stiff” and were “fixed” in a contorted position “as if they’d been that way for a long time,” she noted.

Kaki told ABC News she has not yet formally reported the alleged torture to a government or humanitarian agency.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal that involved a hostage exchange earlier this month. All remaining living hostages held by Hamas have been turned over to Israel and Hamas said it is continuing to search for the bodies of some deceased hostages.

Under the ceasefire agreement, Israel also turned over living and dead Palestinians in its custody.

The Israel Defense Forces rejected the allegations of torture and told ABC News that it operates “strictly in accordance with international law,” in a statement last week.

The type of scarring on the unidentified Palestinian bodies was “pretty consistent across most of them” and several bodies had “what looked like gunshot wounds in their legs,” according to Kaki.

“Probably about six” of the corpses she looked at had fingers missing, she noted.

“Every single person that I looked at had their hands and feet bound, or like traces of their hands or feet were bound in some way,” Kaki said.

In its statement rejecting allegations of torture, the IDF said it “did not tie any bodies prior to their release to the [Gaza] Strip.”

The bodies were returned by Israel without names and some had numbers “spray-painted” onto them, according to Kaki, who spoke from inside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. She has been based in Gaza non-stop since June 2024.

The corpses examined had possibly been held by Israel for as long as two years, Kaki noted.

The bodies had decomposed to some extent by the time she examined them, but medical professionals from Nasser Hospital believe that some sort of preservation process had been applied to the corpses while they were held by Israel, Kaki said.

Asked how confident she could be that the bodies had evidence of torture, Kaki said, “I would say 99% [sure] and the only 1% is that I didn’t see it [the alleged torture] with my own eyes.”

The Nasser Hospital medical professionals who inspected the bodies told her “that this was clearly torture and that most of it, if not all of it, was done while these people were still alive,” Kaki said.

ABC News has reviewed graphic images of corpses obtained by Kaki. The photos were taken from a Palestinian journalist whom Kaki said was present when she examined the bodies. The images appeared to back up her account.

More than 1,900 living Palestinian prisoners and detainees who were released by Israel under the ceasefire agreement. Kaki said she spoke to 35 former detainees who said they had experienced torture.

She also examined wounds on their bodies and, according to Kaki, their accounts “lined up very clearly with what their bodies showed.”

The IDF described the allegations as “false propaganda” and said “all of the [Palestinian] bodies returned [to Gaza] so far are from combatants within the Gaza Strip.”

A mass burial was held for 54 unidentified Palestinians in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza last week.

Kaki said she believed authorities in Gaza were ultimately unable to identify the bodies returned due to their deformities and injuries. 

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Blood visible from space in Sudan shows evidence of Darfur genocide: Analysts

Blood visible from space in Sudan shows evidence of Darfur genocide: Analysts
Blood visible from space in Sudan shows evidence of Darfur genocide: Analysts
The Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at the Yale School of Public Health observed numerous clusters with discoloration around them, consistent with the appearance of human bodies in the Darfur region of Sudan. (Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health)

(NEW YORK) — Satellite images and verified videos paint a harrowing picture of door-to-door mass killings in the Darfur region of war-torn Sudan as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary rebels captured a key city in the region.

The Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at the Yale School of Public Health says they observed numerous clusters with discoloration around them, consistent with the appearance of human bodies across the city as RSF advanced.

The apparent masses were seen in a hospital, all over residential neighborhoods, on the outskirts of the city and by military bases of the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

The alleged killings took place “in under 72 hours since RSF took control of the city,” Nathaniel Raymond, an American human rights and war crimes investigator at HRL who has been documenting the massacres in Sudan with satellite imagery, told ABC News.

With his team at the research lab, Raymond said he observed “an explosion of objects that measure between 1.3 to 2 meters proliferate all over the ground,” which HRL Yale concluded is human bodies due to the length, shape and videos from the ground showing alleged systematic civilian killings.

“In Daraja Oula — a neighborhood where civilians have been hiding — we’re seeing a tactical posture on the vehicles that is highly consistent with house-to-house killing,” Raymond told ABC News. “This is also consistent with video and testimony from those who reached Tawila. Particularly women, who said that the men are being separated by RSF and then they hear gunshots.”

The research lab also observed discoloration around these objects, which they concluded is blood, further confirmed by the presence of Rapid Support Forces (RSF) military vehicles always spotted in close proximity, Raymond said. An update on the report shows that the piles have grown and none of the original objects have moved, Raymond told ABC News.

Researchers said they also corroborated reports of alleged executions at Saudi Hospital, where at least four clusters of bodies appeared. “We see a line of people standing on day one at an RSF detention facility that was formerly a children’s hospital. On day two, we see a pile now in the corner consistent with the color and length of those individuals who are standing there in a line on the previous day,” Raymond said.

On the outskirts of El Fasher, HRL Yale also said they observed multiple clusters appearing between Oct. 26 and Oct. 27, consistent with reports of civilians being killed as they tried to flee. West of the city, along its encircling berm, at least six clusters were observed as well as adjacent technical vehicles, which were not seen in images from Oct. 28, suggesting RSF had moved, leaving the large clusters of bodies behind, according to the research lab.

RSF has also taken control of the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) military bases in the city, the HRL analysis appears to show.

Satellite images from Oct. 26 show at least 15 new munition scars and thermal burns on the ground of the 6th Division HQ of the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces in a comparison with images from Oct. 15.

“We’ve seen that all of the Sudan Armed Forces vehicles left en masse at about the same time. Which is consistent with reports that they escaped in the night in what now appears to be a negotiated deal with the Rapid Support Forces, leaving the civilians in Al-Fasher to die,” Raymond said.

During the offensive, El Fasher has been cut off from the outside world. Besieged for 18 months — the UN called it the “epicentre of suffering” — and now with RSF forces inside the city, there is no observable mass movement of people fleeing, likely prevented from escaping the alleged killings in what experts fear is just the beginning of devastating violence.

In January, the U.S. State Department announced it had concluded members of the RSF had committed genocide in Sudan, specifically pointing to human rights violations in Darfur. Raymond says what we are seeing “is the final battle of the Darfur genocide that began 20 years ago.”

Compared to previous RSF offensives — such as one in April on the largest displacement camp in Darfur, ZamZam — humanitarian observers are suggesting the new satellite imagery shows a more systematic way of killing that is making them warn of a possible genocide unfolding.

“Here, in the case of El Fasher, what’s different? They’re not burning the city to the ground. They have the city encircled. They are controlling the entrance and exit. And they are moving pretty systematically, unlike ZamZam. Pretty systematically, block by block. And as they move, we see objects consistent with bodies, often with discoloration, appear,” Raymond told ABC News.

From testimony on the ground, those who have fled said that men have been separated from women and children, who are now likely in hiding, but are next in the firing line, Raymond said.

“It’s now going to accelerate,” he said. “We haven’t even hit top velocity. The people that they will kill now are those who are hiding. And they’re mostly women and children… Now it’ll be those who were too weak to run or those men who were hiding and trying to protect them from the RSF.”

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Prince Andrew stripped of his ‘prince’ title, per Buckingham Palace

Prince Andrew stripped of his ‘prince’ title, per Buckingham Palace
Prince Andrew stripped of his ‘prince’ title, per Buckingham Palace

(LONDON) — Prince Andrew, the brother of King Charles III, has been stripped of his prince title, Buckingham Palace announced Thursday.

Andrew will now officially be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, according to the palace.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

 

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Russia fires 705 missiles, drones into Ukraine in ‘complex’ attack, Zelenskyy says

Russia fires 705 missiles, drones into Ukraine in ‘complex’ attack, Zelenskyy says
Russia fires 705 missiles, drones into Ukraine in ‘complex’ attack, Zelenskyy says
Margaryta Galych/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images

(LONDON) — Russia bombarded Ukrainian cities with 705 missiles and drones overnight into Thursday, according to Ukraine’s air force, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reporting strikes on civilian targets and energy infrastructure all across the country.

Russia launched 653 drones and 52 missiles of various types in its attack, Ukraine’s air force said. Of those, 592 drones and 31 missiles were shot down or otherwise suppressed, the air force said. Sixteen missiles and 63 drones impacted across 20 locations, the air force said.

Wednesday night’s attack was the second-largest Russian drone and missile barrage of the full-scale invasion to date, according to Ukrainian air force data analyzed by ABC News.

Only the bombardment of the night of Sept. 6 to 7 — in which Russia launched a combined total of 823 drones and missiles into Ukraine — was larger.

Zelenskyy said attacks were reported in the capital Kyiv and at least nine other Ukrainian regions, stretching from frontline areas in the southeast of the country to the border with Poland in the west.

“It was a complex, combined strike,” Zelenskyy said in a post to social media. At least two people were killed in a strike on a residential building in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, with “tens of people” injured, the president said.

“There have also been many vile strikes on energy facilities and civilian life across the regions,” Zelenskyy wrote. “All the necessary services are deployed on the sites. All efforts should be made to restore power and water supply as swiftly as possible wherever it’s been disrupted.”

“Russia continues its terrorist war against life itself, and it’s crucial that every such vile attack on civilians boomerangs back on Russia with concrete consequences — sanctions and real pressure,” Zelenskyy continued.

“We count on America, Europe, and the G7 countries not to ignore this,” he wrote. “New steps are needed to increase pressure — on Russia’s oil and gas industry, its financial system and through secondary sanctions on those who bankroll this war.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces shot down at least 173 Ukrainian drones overnight into Thursday. Nine were downed over the Moscow region, including six that were “heading to Moscow,” the ministry said.

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Trump touts short-term deal with China after Xi meeting

Trump touts short-term deal with China after Xi meeting
Trump touts short-term deal with China after Xi meeting
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

(LONDON) — President Donald Trump touted an “amazing” meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, saying the two leaders reached agreements to reduce tariffs on Chinese imports, delay Chinese restrictions on its rare earth mineral exports and secure Chinese purchases of American soybeans and other farm products.

Still, key topics — including Chinese designs on Taiwan and a potential deal to keep TikTok operating in the U.S. — were not addressed, according to the post-meeting remarks from Trump and official Chinese readouts.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One following the meeting with Xi, which lasted about 1 hour and 45 minutes, Trump said the 20% tariffs on China related to fentanyl were being reduced to 10%, bringing the total amount of duties imposed on Chinese imports from 57% to 47%.

Trump said he agreed to reduce the tariff rate because China had agreed to “work very hard to stop the flow” of fentanyl.

Trump said the U.S. had reached a one-year agreement with China ensuring Beijing would not impose dramatic restrictions on rare earth minerals — materials key for producing computer chips that are needed for everything including smartphones, AI systems and defense technology.

China’s Ministry of Commerce confirmed the temporary suspension of those restrictions in an official readout. Trump said he believes the one-year deal will be “routinely” extended.

Meanwhile, Trump also said Xi had “authorized China to begin the purchase of massive amounts of Soybeans, Sorghum, and other Farm products.”

“We have a deal now,” Trump told reporters. “Every year we’ll renegotiate the deal, but I think the deal will go on for a long time, long beyond the year. We’ll negotiate at the end of the year. But all of the rare earth has been settled, and that’s for the world.”

The president said the meeting touched on most key bilateral issues. “A lot of decisions were made,” Trump said. “There wasn’t too, too much left out there.”

Overall, Trump said the meeting with Xi in South Korea was “amazing,” and on a scale of 1 to 10 gave it a 12. “He’s a great leader, great leader of a very powerful, very strong country, China, and we, what can I say? We have — it was an outstanding group of decisions, I think that was made,” Trump said.

The two leaders agreed that Trump will visit China in April, the president said, with Xi then visiting the U.S. “sometime after that.”

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce released a statement following the meeting saying that Beijing “looks forward to working with the United States to do a good job in implementation and inject more certainty and stability into Sino-U.S. economic and trade cooperation and the world economy.”

Leaders talk soybeans, but not Taiwan
Trump said China would begin purchasing U.S. soybeans “immediately” as part of the new deal. The Chinese pause on purchasing Americans soybeans had been a major part of the ongoing trade war and had deeply affected American farmers.

“We’re in agreement on so many elements, large amounts, tremendous amounts of the soybeans and other farm products are going to be purchased immediately, starting immediately,” Trump told reporters after the meeting.

In a later social media post, Trump said Xi “authorized China to begin the purchase of massive amounts of Soybeans, Sorghum, and other Farm products.”

Trump also said that he discussed computer chips with Xi, claiming China said they would speak with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia and some others about purchasing products from America.

Trump said the two men did not discuss Nvidia’s high-end Blackwell artificial intelligence chip during the talks.

In his post to social media after the meeting, Trump said China also agreed to “begin the process of purchasing American Energy. In fact, a very large scale transaction may take place concerning the purchase of Oil and Gas from the Great State of Alaska.”

Trump did not address a potential deal to keep TikTok running in the U.S. China’s Commerce Ministry said it is committed to “properly resolving issues related to TikTok.” The statement did not say a deal had been finalized. 

The thorny issue of Taiwan did not come up, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Russia’s war in Ukraine was discussed at length, the president added, with Trump saying he and Xi agreed to work together to get the war “finished.”

“Ukraine came up very strongly,” Trump said. “We talked about it for a long time, and we’re both going to work together to see if we can get something done.”

“We agree the sides are, you know, locked in fighting, and sometimes you have to let him fight, I guess, crazy, but he’s going to help us, and we’re going to work together on Ukraine. Not a lot more we can do,” Trump said.

Trump said that he didn’t broach China’s continued purchases of oil from Russia.

“He’s been buying oil from Russia for a long time. It takes care of a big part of China,” Trump said. “But we didn’t really discuss the oil. We discussed working together to see if we could get that war finished. You know, it doesn’t affect China. It doesn’t affect us.”

The president said his pre-meeting announcement on the planned resumption of U.S. nuclear testing was not aimed at China. Rather, he said, it “had to do with others.”

“They seem to all be nuclear testing,” he said. “We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We don’t do testing. We’ve halted it years, many years ago. But with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we’d … also testing.”

When pressed, Trump would not say who the “others” were. The U.S. and Russia, he added, have the most nuclear warheads, with China able to “catch up within four or five years.”

“I’d like to see a denuclearization,” Trump said. “I think de-escalation would be — they would call denuclearization — would be a tremendous thing, and it’s something we are actually talking to Russia about that and China would be added to that, if we do something.”

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5 more suspects arrested over Louvre jewel heist

5 more suspects arrested over Louvre jewel heist
5 more suspects arrested over Louvre jewel heist
Jerome Gilles/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

(LONDON) — Five more suspects have been arrested in connection to the the Oct. 19 jewel heist at the Louvre museum in Paris, according to Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau.

The arrests took place on Wednesday in the Seine-Saint-Denis region in the suburbs of Paris though French authorities have not yet named any of the suspects.

Beccuau, who was speaking on French radio station RTL, said that the stolen jewelry has still not been found but that police believe one of the suspects arrested in yesterday’s raid could be a major person of interest due to his DNA being found at the scene of the crime.

French police told ABC News that one of the suspects was already identified and had been under surveillance for a few days already.

The fresh arrests bring to seven the total number of people detained related to the heist. Two other people — both men in their 30s and from the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis — were arrested last weekend, French National Police confirmed to ABC News.

Investigators said they matched trace DNA evidence recovered from a helmet left at the scene of the crime to one of the suspects, enabling police to put the alleged thief under phone and physical surveillance.

One suspect was arrested at 10 p.m. on Saturday at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport while trying to board a plane bound for Algeria, according to police.

Investigators previously told ABC News that the second suspect was arrested as he was about to travel to Mali, but on Wednesday, Beccuau said the man had no intention of leaving the country.

One of the suspects has dual citizenship in France and Mali, and the other is a dual citizen of France and Algeria, investigators said, adding that both were already known to police from past burglary cases.

Investigators say they’re still determining whether a source inside the Louvre may have had a role in the theft.

“They knew exactly where they were going. It looks like something very organized and very professional,” French Culture Minister Rachida Dati told ABC News last week.

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Louvre heist suspects to be charged, jewels not recovered: Paris prosecutor

Louvre heist suspects to be charged, jewels not recovered: Paris prosecutor
Louvre heist suspects to be charged, jewels not recovered: Paris prosecutor
Jerome Gilles/NurPhoto via Getty Images

(PARIS) — The Paris public prosecutor reported on Wednesday that investigators are making “major progress” in solving the brazen Oct. 19 Louvre Museum heist and said two suspects in custody will be charged with “organized robbery.”

During a news conference on Wednesday, Laure Beccuau, the Paris Public Prosecutor, released new information about the two suspects arrested last weekend, but said the stolen jewels remain missing.

Beccuau said that if the suspects are convicted, they’ll face a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and heavy fines.

A 96-hour deadline for charging or releasing the suspects was set to expire on Wednesday. Both suspects are from the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, authorities previously said.

Beccuau also said in her press conference that the two suspects arrested on Saturday “partially admitted their involvement in the events to investigators.”

A massive manhunt continued on Wednesday for at least two other suspects in the robbery. Beccuau said she has not ruled out the possibility that more perpetrators were involved in the heist, but added that, at this stage, evidence has not suggested any additional accomplices.

Beccuau said trace DNA recovered from a scooter used in the heist and a window at the Louvre helped investigators identify the suspects, whose names have not been released.

One man was arrested about 8 p.m. local time on Saturday at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport as he was about to leave the country without a return ticket, Beccuau said. She said the suspect has lived in France since 2010 and had been convicted of a previous robbery.

Beccuau said the second suspect is a taxi driver who was arrested at 8:40 p.m. on Saturday near his home. She said the suspect’s DNA was found on one of the windows at the Louvre.

Beccuau said the suspect had been previously convicted of “aggravated robberies” in 2008 and 2014.

Investigators previously told ABC News that the second suspect was arrested as he was about to travel to Mali, but on Wednesday, Beccuau said the man had no intention of leaving the country.

ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge and Joseph Simonetti contributed to this report.

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