Ex-drag Queen Arrested in French Gay Murders Case

French police have today arrested a 68-year-old former drag artist on suspicion of killing 18 men - many of them gay.

Nicolas Panard is suspected of murdering 11 men in the eastern region of Alsace, four in a neighboring region and three in the Paris area, according to the public prosecutor in the town of Montbeliard, Jean-Martin Jaegle.

Panard, who is gay himself, was arrested in Mulhouse, in Alsace. His suspected accomplice, Slim Fezzani, 43, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for murdering a gay insurance agent in 1999, has also been brought in for questioning, said Jaegle.

Both men deny the accusations.

"For the moment there has been no admission of guilt and there is no proof that they are guilty," Jaegle told Reuters.

The killings took place between 1980 and 2002, with all the victims suffering a heavy blow to the head and multiple stab wounds. All the victims were found partly naked, with their faces covered.

Panard performed as a drag queen in cabaret clubs across France and Germany before retiring in 1992, according to the local paper L'Alsace.

Jean-Marc Gervason, a state prosecutor, told the news agency AFP that the investigation was concerned with only six of the 18 killings and that it was "too soon, at this stage ... to start speaking of a serial killer".

L'Alsace said Panard's arrest followed a two-year investigation by a Montbeliard police officer. The officer recognized Panard's name in files relating to a series of unsolved murders.

He also spotted common features in the murders.