DETECTIVES probing the brutal murders of two French students have arrested a seventh person.

A 19-year-old man from Ramsgate, Kent, was held on suspicion of murder, Scotland Yard said.

Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, both 23, were stabbed hundreds of times in a frenzied and prolonged attack at a rented bedsit in New Cross, south east London.

The badly burned bodies were found after an explosion at the building on June 29.

A Yard spokesman said the 19-year-old was arrested at an address in Margate yesterday by Kent officers on behalf of the Metropolitan police.

“He is currently in custody of Kent Police but will be transferred to a south London police station in due course,” the spokesman said.

Two men have previously been remanded in custody over the deaths.

Daniel Sonnex, 23, of Peckham, and Nigel Farmer, 33, of no fixed address, have been charged with murder and perverting the course of justice.

Mr Bonomo and Mr Ferez were in the second year of masters degrees at the Clermont-Ferrand Polytech in the Auvergne region of central France.

Both were nearing the end of a three-month research placement studying DNA at Imperial College London when they were murdered.