A team led by judge Marc Trévidic arrived in Algiers on Sunday to investigate the killing of seven French Trappist monks at the height of the conflict between Algerian security forces and Islamist militants 18 years ago, reports FRANCE 24.
Trévidic and two other French officials are expected to stay in Algeria for one week and take part in the exhumation and forensic examination of the monks' heads, which are buried at their monastery in Tibhirine, 80km south of the capital.
Christian de Chergé, Luc Dochier, Paul Favre Miville, Michel Fleury, Christophe Lebreton, Bruno Lemarchand and Célestin Ringeard were abducted in March 1996 and their severed heads were found several weeks later. The rest of their bodies is still missing.
The Algerian authorities have blamed the atrocity on the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), a militia that claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and sought a ransom. Later, GIA also said it had carried out the assassination, but in 2009, a retired French general alleged that Algerian army helicopters had accidentally killed the monks in operations against Islamist rebels.
Read more of this report from FRANCE 24.