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A French robber has been captured after DNA evidence was found on the cheek of a jewellery shop owner he had kissed apologetically after binding and gagging her for hours during a raid.

The unnamed 20 year-old and an accomplice trailed the 56-year-old employee of a Paris jewellery store to her home and seized her. They tied the woman to a chair and gagged her before pouring what they said was petrol over her head, threatening to light it unless she cooperated.

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“She finally gave them the codes to the jewellery store’s alarm system and safes,” a police source told Le Parisien newspaper. “One of the two assailants then went and stole the money and jewels.” Four hours later, her kidnapper untied the woman before making his costly mistake.

“This hoodlum planted a kiss on her cheek, apparently in a sign of compassion after the terrible ordeal she had just been through,” said the police source.

Once freed, she alerted the police, explaining in detail what had happened, including the parting kiss.

A forensic team swabbed her cheek and the man’s DNA was found in the national genetic print database.

He was traced to a jail cell in Nimes, southern France, where he had been arrested on suspicion of other thefts.

The man told police that he had decided to kiss his victim to “ease her trauma.”

Daily Telegraph