Man held in Morocco over Ding family murder

Police in Morocco have arrested a man thought to be the businessman named more than a year ago as the prime suspect in the murder of a family-of-four at their home in Northamptonshire.

Anxiang Du is thought to have fled Britain shortly after a university lecturer, Jifeng Ding, his wife Ge Chui and their daughters Alice, 12, and Xing, 18, were stabbed to death at their home on 29 April last year. British police travelled to Spain last week and said they believed Mr Anxiang, a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, could have been living and working in Tangier.

He is believed to have boarded a bus from London and travelled through France and Spain via bus and train before catching a ferry from the southern Spanish port of Algeciras to Tangier.

Mr Anxiang, who had a business dispute with the Ding family, was named as the prime suspect after he left an apparent suicide note at his herbal remedy shop in Birmingham and disappeared after the killing. He was believed to have taken several thousands of pounds with him.

Northamptonshire Police Force said it would be seeking his extradition from Morocco.