A suspect in the brutal murders of two French students in London has been taken to hospital after handing himself in today.

The Metropolitan Police said that the 33-year-old man walked into a South London police station this morning.

Officers may however have to wait some time to question him while he receives medical attention. Police refused to comment on how he is or what is wrong with him.

Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo, both 23, were in Britain on a three-month research project at Imperial College London, which was due to end later this month.

Their badly burnt bodies were found by firefighters after an explosion at the ground-floor flat they were sharing in New Cross, southeast London, at 10pm last Sunday.

They had been bound, gagged and covered in hundreds of stab wounds after a prolonged, frenzied attack. A pathologist later documented 243 separate injuries to the students’ bodies. Mr Bonomo had been stabbed 80 times after he was dead.

The killer or killers then set fire to the flat, pouring a petrol-like accelerant on and around the bodies.

Police yesterday released an e-fit of a man seen running away from the scene of the murders, describing him as white, aged 30 to 40 and slim. He was wearing a light-coloured baseball cap, a dark top, blue jeans and white trainers. It was revealed that detectives had discovered an item of blood-stained clothing nearby.

Today detectives said that they were following up dozens of new leads after a high-profile appeal for information at the scene of the crime last night. Officers stopped cars in streets around Sterling Gardens last night to hand out leaflets and to show the e-fit. More than 100 people who attended services at the nearby Baptist Church in Cottesbrooke Street have been approached by police.

Detectives have also questioned a 21-year-old man, arrested on Saturday, over the murders. He was later released without charge.

Six days earlier, Mr Bonomo disturbed an intruder in the flat stealing a laptop computer. Experts have found no evidence of forced entry after the murders, suggesting that keys might also have been stolen during the first break-in.

Mr Bonomo's fiancée was last night said to have probably been the last person to speak to the men, other than their killer.

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