Elite French Police Officers Charged With Raping Canadian Tourist

Two officers from an elite French police unit have been charged with raping a Canadian tourist at their Paris headquarters.

Four officers were taken into custody after the 34-year-old woman filed a report that she had been raped in the police headquarters overnight on 22 April.

A source close to the investigation told AFP that two officers from the elite BRI unit, which fights gang crime, have been charged, after the other two were released on Saturday.

France's interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said in a statement that the two officers would "face the full consequences" if they were found guilty.

According to judicial sources, the woman met the officers on a night of heavy drinking at an Irish pub frequented by police near the headquarters at 36 Quai des Orfevres.

According to Canadian reports, she may herself be a police officer.

Sources said that she agreed to follow them to the police headquarters which is located across the river Seine from the Saint Michel district, which is popular with tourists.

It is there that she alleges she was raped. Initial medical examinations were carried out and DNA samples taken but the results are not yet known.

One officer has admitted to having consensual sex with the woman but denies rape. A judicial investigation has been launched into the alleged rape, as well as into accusations that they tampered with the crime scene.

AFP reports that the woman's spectacles and stockings disappeared after she filed the complaint.