Murder review officers released

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Three ex-police officers and a serving officer are among nine people released from bail in the reinvestigation into the murder of prostitute Lynette White.

Ms White, 20, was stabbed to death at her flat in Butetown, Cardiff in 1988.

The officers were arrested on charges of perverting the course of justice, false imprisonment and misconduct following a miscarriage of justice.

Another 23 people remain on police bail, including 15 retired or serving officers.

Three men were wrongly jailed for murder in 1990 but later released.

Steven Miller, Yusef Abdullahi and Tony Paris, who became known as the Cardiff Three, had their convictions quashed at the Court of Appeal in 1992.

In 2003, Jeffrey Gafoor, from Llanharan near Bridgend, was jailed for life for the murder.

Jeffrey Gafoor admitted stabbing Lynette White 50 times

South Wales Police began an inquiry, supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), in 2003 following Gafoor's conviction to establish what went wrong with the original investigation.

Gafoor confessed to stabbing Ms White 50 times at her flat on Valentine's Day in 1988 after fresh DNA evidence was uncovered.

'Commitment'

Police still have 23 people on bail in connection with the re-investigation, who remain under consideration for prosecution.

The four officers released from bail - a detective chief superintendent, a detective superintendent and two detective constables at the time of the original investigation - were arrested between 2005 and 2006.

The five other people, also released from bail, were witnesses in the original enquiry.

They are two women aged 33 and 44 and three men aged 44, 46 and 61. They were arrested between 2003 and 2005 on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.

Deputy Chief Constable Stephen Cahill, who is overseeing the re-investigation, said: "To date, this has been an extensive, painstaking and wide-ranging investigation.

"Over three years on, our commitment remains undiminished and our search for the truth continues and will not stop until we achieve that ultimate objective."