Caroline suspect's murder trial

Caroline Dickinson was staying in a youth hostel in Brittany

A date has been set for the trial of a Spanish man accused of the rape and murder of Cornish schoolgirl Caroline Dickinson.

Francisco Arce Montes, who was arrested in Florida, will appear in court in the French town of Rennes on 2 June, court officials told the AFP news agency.

Caroline,13, was killed while on a school trip from Launceston in July 1996.

She was sexually assaulted and suffocated in her dormitory at a youth hostel in the Brittany town of Pleine-Fougeres.

Arce Montes, 52, was arrested in Miami in March 2001 after allegedly breaking into a woman's bedroom and committing a lewd act.

Health fear

But state authorities there decided to drop the case against him in order to facilitate his extradition to France.

He was extradited in November 2001 and placed under investigation for Caroline's murder, and has since been in custody in a prison in Rennes.

The investigation in the Dickinson case was apparently at a dead end in 2001 after more than 3,500 DNA tests had failed to reveal the culprit.

But it was kick-started after a US police officer on holiday in Europe read an account of the Dickinson case and made the connection with the arrest in Florida of Arce Montes, a former waiter.

Prosecutors say the trial will last about 10 days.

But there are said to be concerns about the health of Montes.

He has been moved to a hospital prison near Paris where he is reported to be refusing solid food.