By Lauren Grice
A British man has been arrested by French police in connection with the murder of a jogger in the town of Nimes.
The 32-year-old from Kent is being questioned over the killing of a mother of three, whose body was found in woodlands on Thursday.
Officers took the unnamed man into custody after noticing his resemblance to a possible suspect during door-to-door enquiries.
He is also said to have marks on his hands that could have been made by thorn scratches, linking him to the scrubland location of the corpse of 33-year-old Joudia Zimmat.
A female neighbour told the AFP of her disbelief at the arrest, stating she regularly saw the man out walking his dog.
“He was a kind person, a very polite young man,” she said.
Ms Zimmat’s partially-clothed body was found on Thursday evening and a post mortem revealed she had been sexually assaulted and stabbed several times.
A box cutter-style knife and two stones marked with blood stains were found near the scene and are believed to have been used in the crime.
“She had been cut and beaten with rocks. Her throat had been slit and her face was unrecognisable. She had been slaughtered,” a police officer said of the murder.
