A Swedish man prosecutors say was interested in a jailed racist murderer known as “Laser Man” went on trial yesterday charged with carrying out a series of sometimes fatal copycat sniper attacks on immigrant victims.
In a case that has highlighted tensions with foreigners in a Nordic region already traumatised by Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, Swedish prosecutors have charged Peter Mangs (40) with three murders and 12 attempted murders. “I am seeking a guilty sentence for murder,” chief prosecutor Solveig Wollstad told the court as she began to set out her case against him yesterday.
Mangs, arrested in late 2010 after a massive manhunt, has pleaded not guilty to all the serious charges, but guilty to two counts of causing property damage. Prior to his arrest, he had allegedly taken sniper shots at people in Malmo, mostly immigrants, over a 12-month period, killing one person.
Prosecutors painted an image of Mangs as a man who was hostile to immigrants and had an interest in “Laser Man”, a gunman who used a rifle with laser sights to shoot at immigrants in the early 1990s. – (Reuters)