Members
of the French Police team that arrived here yesterday have started another
search for missing French tourist Celine Henri Saturday morning.
French
tourist Celine Henri and German Sabine Ursula Gruneklee went missing in
the Nagarjun forest on Sept. 3rd and Oct. 15th respectively.
Although
Gruneklee's body was found in the forest a month ago, no traces have been
found of Celine Henri. The French police have been searching and questioning
locals with the help of a team from Valley Crime Investigation Section.
According to security officials, the French team comprises of 6 members
led by the Police Commissioner.
The
medical reports identified the dead body as that of German tourist Sabine
Ursula Grueneklee, 31, who had gone missing in Nagarjun forest four
months ago, police officials involved in the investigation said. The
police couldn't find the French tourist Celine's body.
Update:
Sabine Grüneklee is still missing in Kathmandu. She was last seen
on the 15th of october in the Nagarjun Forest, which is 8km in the northwest
of Kathmandu.
We
are still searching people, who were in the Nagarjun Forest on 15. october
2005, especially an Italien group of 3-6 people and a French man, who were
definitely at this time in the Nagarjun Forest. We hope that they have
got important information in the case of Sabine.
If somebody knows Italien or French people, who were in Kathmandu or in this forest at this time - please contact us, contact options can be found below.
On Saturday, 3 September, 32-year-old Celine Henri signed her name into the entrance book at the gate of the Nagarjun Forest at 12.05 PM. She never signed out. No one has seen or heard from her since. That morning Henri, who served in Nepal as a volunteer, stored her luggage at Hotel Pilgrim in Thamel and told the receptionist she would be back by evening. Family and friends raised the alarm only a month later when they hadn't heard from her. Under pressure from Henri's family, French ambassador Michel Jolivet decided to investigate himself. A trekking guide said he had seen someone fitting Henri's description climbing to the summit of Nagarjun on 3 September. The French Embassy checked the register at the gate of Nagarjun and found Henri's name. On 16 October, Jolivet and embassy staff retraced Henri's steps and 20 minutes climb above the twin helipads on Nagarjun's east ridge they came upon a water bottle, a black jersey and a bra. They immediately called the police from a mobile phone who arrived with sniffer dogs. The police found fresh blood stains, a hair clip and a spot where the high grass had been trampled. The
French were puzzled: Henri had been missing for more than a month yet the
blood was fresh and grass in the monsoon doesn't stay crushed like that.
What they didn't realise was that they had discovered the spot where a
31-year-old German woman, Sabine Gruneklee, had been killed only the day
before.
The walled Nagarjun forest reserve, north-west of Kathmandu, is filled with live pheasant, deer and other animals. This is one of the last significant areas of untouched forest in the Kathmandu Valley. Nearby is a popular Buddhist pilgrimage site, a number of limestone caves and a small lookout with commanding views over the countryside. The main entrance to the reserve is a 20-minute bicycle ride from Thamel; the walking trails begin just inside the gate.
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