Anguish for family as murder inquiry drags on

Since their son and nephew Trevor O'Keeffe was murdered in north-eastern France 12 summers ago, Eroline O'Keeffe and Noeleen Slattery - the young man's mother and aunt - have travelled to France dozens of times. They have spent more than £25,000 in their quest to bring Mr O'Keeffe's killer to justice. Yesterday's journey brought them hope and frustration in equal measure.

Mrs O'Keeffe's French lawyer, Mr Eric Dupond-Moretti, told her at a meeting in his office in Lille that Mr Pierre Chanal, the former French warrant officer who has been officially under investigation since the early 1990s for eight murders including Mr O'Keeffe's, could go on trial by the end of this year. Mr Chanal served six-and-a-half years in prison for kidnappping and raping a Hungarian youth in 1988.

DNA tests completed last February confirmed that three of some 400 hair fragments found in Mr Chanal's van belonged to Mr O'Keeffe and two of the seven murdered Frenchmen, Patrice Denis and Patrick Gache. Forensic tests also reconfirmed that soil in Mr Chanal's van was identical to that found in Trevor O'Keeffe's shallow grave, 100 km from the military base where Mr Chanal was posted.

It took three years for French scientists to cross-check the hairs with DNA samples taken from relatives of the dead and missing men in 1996. Mr Andre Buffard, Mr Chanal's lawyer, demanded that all of the tests be redone, a move seen as a stalling tactic by the families. "The chances of a DNA test being wrong are one in 2.6 million," Mrs O'Keeffe said yesterday. The investigating magistrate, Judge Pascal Chapard, rejected Mr Buffard's request in every case except one - Mr O'Keeffe's. The findings of a laboratory in Strasbourg may determine whether Mr Chanal is tried or cleared. In the meantime, the former warrant officer is living with his sister near Lyons, reporting periodically to the local gendarmerie. Last week, the French government was found guilty of violating Article 6 of the European Declaration on Human Rights, which ensures the right to justice within a reasonable amount of time. The case in question had taken seven-and-a-half years to reach court; the O'Keeffe case is now 12 years old.

Mr Poiret, the official whom Mrs O'Keeffe and Mrs Slattery met at the Justice Ministry in Paris yesterday, had been prosecutor on the Chanal case from 1992 until 1996 - four years during which the case went nowhere. This was the women's third appointment in the Place Vendome. No one showed up for their first appointment in 1996. Four French officials met them several weeks later, promising they would do "everything in their power" to move the case forward.

Last January, Mrs O'Keeffe requested a third appointment at the Justice Ministry. "It took them eight months to tell us that they have no interest in the affair," her sister, Mrs Slattery said, after yesterday's meeting.