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Sweden: `Laserman' trial begins

01 January 1991

Sweden: `Laserman' trial begins
artdoc May=1994

The trial of 40-year-old John Ausonius, a gunman accused of
killing one immigrant and wounding ten others in 1991, began in
Stockholm in August. The attacks were carried out by a man using
a high-power laser-sighted rifle. Dubbed the `laserman', the
killer became a hero in the eyes of neo-nazis. The attacks began
in August 1991 when an Eritrean student was shot twice in the hip
at an underground station. John Ausonius was kept in solitary
confinement whilst the police amassed evidence against him. He
was arrested after he attempted to rob a bank (Guardian 2.9.93).
Racism in Trollhatten
Six Swedish men, aged between 16 and 29, have been jailed for
racially motivated attacks in Trollhattan, an industrial town
where racial tension is rife. Five of the men were found guilty
of an assault on a Somali man who was kicked unconscious whilst
one of the defendants jumped on his head. The man was in a coma
for a week and has suffered so far unquantified brain damage. The
five men received jail sentences of between two and 34 months.
Another man received a two-month sentence for a separate attack
on a Somali on the same day (Weekly Journal 16.9.93).

Tamil hunger strike in Orebro

Seventy Tamils started a hunger strike in the Olaus Petri church
in Orebro in the middle region of Sweden in protest at a planned
government programme of deportation. The hunger strikers, many
of whom, at one stage, refused water, had a meeting with a top-
ranking Swedish judge who agreed to halt the planned deportations
until 1 November, when a further decision would be made. But the
Tamils decided to continue their hunger strike (Letter of the
Kampagne fur menschentrechte in Sri Lanka und Tamil Eelam).

Asylum and immigration

IRR European Race Audit, Bulletin no 6, December 1993. Contact:
Liz Fekete, Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London
WC1X 9HS. Tel: 071 837 0041.