Suspected racist sniper on year-long shooting spree, charged with three murders

A Swedish man suspected of having unleashed a year-long shooting spree against immigrants was officially charged Monday with 20 crimes including three murders and 12 attempted murders.

Peter Mangs, 40, is suspected of being behind a string of shootings that gripped the southern Swedish city of Malmoe with fear from 2009-2010.

Mangs was arrested in early November 2010 following a massive police manhunt as the violence against immigrants in Sweden's third largest city intensified.

He has been charged with killing two men of immigrant origin in 2003 and one Swedish woman who had been sitting in a car with an immigrant man in late 2009.

He was also charged with 12 attempted murders in which he fired numerous shots with his Glock 19 pistol at homes, businesses and cars as well as out in the open, seriously injuring a number of people and coming close to killing many others.

He was also charged with having prepared one murder by repeatedly carrying his gun to the home of a man he intended to kill, as well as making illegal threats, vandalism and aggravated judicial tampering, all between 2009 and 2010.

The Malmoe shooting spree bore chilling similarity to the case of a gunman who targeted immigrants in Stockholm in the early 1990s, dubbed "Laserman".

The Stockholm "Laserman", John Ausonius, shot 11 people of immigrant origin, killing one, from August 1991 to January 1992.

Ausonius, who got his nickname by initially using a rifle equipped with a laser sight, was jailed for life in 1994. 

ORIGINAL SOURCE: http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/World/Story/A1Story20120507-344418.html
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