Swedish serial killer 'Laser Man' facing extradition to Germany over 1992 murder
John Ausonius shot eleven people between 1991 and 1992 in racially motivated attacks on migrants
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Your support makes all the difference.One of Sweden’s most infamous serial killers is reportedly facing extradition to Germany to face new charges against him, 24 years after being sent to prison.
German police are pushing to extradite “Laser Man” John Ausonius, in order to question him over the alleged murder of 68-year-old Blanka Zmigrod, who was shot in the head on her way home from work in 1992.
Ausonius shot eleven people between August 1991 and January 1992, in racially motivated attacks on migrants in the Stockholm and Uppsala areas.
Following his arrest in 1992, police started tracing his travel abroad and found he had been in the restaurant where Ms Zmigrod worked in Frankfurt a week before she was killed.
He allegedly argued with her during the encounter over a Casio electronic calendar he believed she had stolen.
Police also confirmed the weapon used in the murder had the same 6.35mm calibre as Ausonius’s, athough he claimed to have sold it in Germany some time before her death.
German police interviewed Ausonius for the first time in 1996 at Kumla Prison, but he was never charged.
“I question whether they really have the right to bring a prosecution after all these years,” Ausonius told Aftonbladet newspaper.
“That’s the question we need to answer before I know what I will say over whether I will go down there or not.
“I have nothing against going. I think I will be acquitted and that the case will be closed. But it has to be done correctly.”
Ausonius’s lawyer Thomas Olsson said he was unsure that German police had a legal right to make an extradition request under European law after so much time.
“To defer investigating a suspicion until after so many years have passed, and we are talking of about 20 years, is of course totally unacceptable,” he said.
Ausonius was named "Lasermannen" by the Swedish media after he used a rifle equipped with a laser sight to kill one of his victims.
The 63-year-old is being held in a low-security prison and is allowed out four times a year unsupervised for eight hours at a time.
He denies having any involvement in Ms Zmigrod's death.
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