| STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Reuter) - Swedish police were hunting
Monday for a 23-year-old Chilean and his accomplices after a
gunman ran amok at a Stockholm nighclub during the weekend,
killing three people.
They named the suspect as Guillermo Marquez Jara and
published a photograph of him.
The three died and 20 more were injured when the man -- who
had earlier been refused entry to the club after a scuffle --
opened fire with an automatic rifle at close range on a crowd of
people leaving the trendy Sture Compagniet club.
One of the accomplices was a 25-year-old Swedish citizen,
police said, adding they were not certain if three or four
people had been involved in the killings.
One of the dead was 22-year-old Erik Jonsson, a doorman at
the club. The other two were young women customers.
Another woman shot twice in the head underwent a
22-hour-long operation and was described Monday as critical.
The Stockholm daily Expressen said she was deaf and had not
heard the shooting erupt just as the club closed shortly after 5
a.m. Sunday.
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STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Despite a nightlong hunt, police were
still searching for gunmen Monday who opened fire on a trendy
nightclub over the weekend, killing three people.
Shocked by the sign of worsening violent crime in their
country,
Swedes raised a new debate over everything from gun control to long
queues at nightclubs.
``Each of us asks the questions about what's really happening.
Most of the questions about violence have an answer, only a few
never have been insoluable,'' said editor-in-chief Mats Svegfors on
the front page of his paper, Svenska Dagbladet.
Svegfors said leading writers and politicians should gather
together to search for causes and solutions to a recent wave of
brutal crimes.
Last June, a 24-year-old army officer opened fire near a
barracks in central Sweden, killing seven people. Two months ago in
Norway, a 5-year-old girl was killed by her playmates. Last month,
two teen-age brothers were charged with beating a 15-year-old
friend to death.
Police on Monday said they now were searching for four suspects
in Sunday's shooting. The killers were believed to be seeking
revenge after being turned away by the doorman.
``Witnesses have told us that three or four men could have been
involved in the shooting,'' said Walter Kegoe, head of the police
department's violent crimes division.
``We believe we can solve this, now that we know who several of
the suspects are,'' Kegoe said.
Prosecutors have granted arrest warrants for two of the
suspects
-- Guillermo Marquez Jara, a 23-year-old man from Chile believed to
have fired the weapon, and his alleged accomplice Tommy Zethreus, a
25-year-old Swedish citizen.
Besides naming the two, police released pictures of them. It is
unusual to do so soon after a crime.
``We did it mainly to satisfy the media's wishes, but I can say
that it is not to our disadvantage,'' said police detective Leif
Jennekvist.
Each has a history of violent crime. The Chilean previously was
sentenced for illegal arms possession, police said.
The newspaper Dagbladet in the central town of Sundsvall
reported that one victim, 22-year-old doorman Erik Joakim Jonsson,
previously had given evidence in court that led to Marquez Jara's
conviction.
But police played down a motive of revenge in that case.
``I don't believe Jonsson's testimony was part of the
shooting,'' Kegoe told the national news agency TT.
Some 300 police were taking part in the search, which continued
overnight in the city's fashionable Oestermalm district where the
nightclub, called The Sture Company, is located. Several houses
have been searched.
Police raided the 23-year-old suspect's apartment in a tough,
working-class neighborhood just south of Stockholm on Sunday but
found nobody.
Police armed with automatic weapons late Sunday combed through
a school in the Oestermalm district. Neighbors said they may have
seen someone breaking in shortly after the killings. That search
proved fruitless.
At least two victims were in critical condition, police said,
including one 22-year-old woman with life-threatening bullet wounds
in her head.
Surgeons concluded a 22-hour long operation on the woman Monday
at the Karolinska hospita.
|
| STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- A fourth victim of a weekend nightclub
shooting died from her wounds Tuesday, as police widened their
search across Scandinavia for the gunmen.
Daniella Josberg, 22, a deaf television journalist and on-air
interpreter, died Tuesday afternoon from two gunshot wounds to the
head, the national news agency TT reported.
She became the fourth fatality from the shooting early Sunday.
Two other women patrons, both 21, and the 22-year-old doorman also
were killed. Another 19 were wounded.
Witnesses said gunmen blasted the trendy nightclub about 5:15
a.m. Sunday with automatic rifle fire after arguing and fighting
with the doorman, who had earlier refused them entry.
Prosecutors have granted arrest warrants for two suspects,
Guillermo Marquez Jara, a 23-year-old man from Chile believed to
have fired the weapon, and his alleged accomplice Tommy Zethraeus,
a 25-year-old Swede.
``We are searching only in Nordic countries,'' said police
official Sven Malmrus. ``But we hope they are in Stockholm. ...
We're looking in all parts of Stockholm.''
Police said there may have been four involved in the shooting,
including the alleged shooter Marquez Jara. They escaped on foot
into a nearby park in the city's fashionable Oestermalm district.
Police later raided the apartment of one suspect but found nobody.
The usually peaceful country was stunned by the shooting, the
latest in a string of violent crimes that included the massacre of
seven people last June by a disgruntled soldier.
Some Stockholmers, already growing cautious about crime, were
wary about walking the streets in the city of 1.5 million because
the gunmen were still at large.
``They could do anything, they're capable of anything,'' said
police criminal inspector Walter Kegoe, according to the newspaper
Expressen.
Malmrus said police asked Interpol's Nordic division --
covering
Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway -- to look out for the two
suspects, Marquez Jara and Zethraeus, although they were believed
still in Sweden.
The Chilean previously was sentenced for illegal arms
possession, police have said.
One victim, doorman Erik Joakim Jonsson, himself had served a
year in prison for weapons possession and attempted robbery,
Swedish radio reported. He was cited in a police report for kicking
a robbery victim, the radio said.
Newspaper reports have said the doorman once gave evidence that
led to Marquez Jara's conviction.
Malmrus emphasized that police cannot be sure of the motive
until they apprehend and question the gunmen.
========================================================================
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Police arrested an alleged accomplice
of Stockholm's nightclub gunmen Wednesday and have been deluged
with reported sightings of the fugitives.
A 23-year-old man was seized early Wednesday on charges of
harboring the gunmen, who allegedly killed four people and wounded
19 when they fired on a trendy nightclub early Sunday after the
doorman refused them entry.
Police have issued arrest warrants and released pictures of
Guillermo Marquez Jara, 23, a native Chilean, and Tommy Zethraeus,
25, a Swede. They are among three or four men suspected of
involvement in the shooting.
The alleged accomplice, whose name was not released, ``gave
information that provided me with a cause for arresting him,''
chief prosecutor Jan Danielsson told the news agency TT, giving no
other details.
Police mounted a manhunt across Scandinavia Wednesday for the
fugitives, although said they believed the men were still in the
Stockholm area.
Hospital workers in the northern Norwegian town of Levanger
told
police that two men, speaking Swedish and poor French, arrived
Tuesday asking about plastic surgery.
Norway's NRK television and NTB news agency said a reception
nurse believed one of the men matched a photograph printed in
Nordic newspapers in the last two days.
Swedish police and Norway's criminal police center have been
informed of the hospital sighting. But Norwegian Sheriff's Deputy
Martin Granaas called the report from Innherred Hospital
``extremely uncertain,'' NTB reported.
In Sweden, police also played down the sighting, saying they
have received ``hundreds of tips about the men,'' police inspector
Walter Kegoe told the national news agency TT.
Three of the victims -- two female patrons and the doorman --
were
killed immediately and 20 were wounded. A fourth woman died from
her wounds Tuesday. The dead all were in their early 20s.
========================================================================
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Reuter) - A young Swedish woman died of
gunshot wounds Tuesday, bringing the death toll in Sunday's
Stockholm nightclub massacre to four, police said.
The 22-year-old woman, a deaf television presenter, was shot
twice in the head when a man opened fire with an automatic rifle
on a crowd of people leaving the central Stockholm club early
Sunday.
Three people died immediately and 20 suffered gunshot
wounds. The woman, Daniella Josberg, underwent a 20-hour
operation to try to save her life.
Police said Tuesday it was possible that two men had opened
fire in the attack. A 23-year-old Chilean man and a 25-year-old
Swede have been named by police as prime suspects, but no
arrests have been made.
The Chilean man was involved in a fight with a nightclub
guard early Sunday and is alleged to have returned later for
revenge, opening fire with several salvos of automatic gunfire
from close range.
A police report published in the daily Expressen quoted
police officers at the scene as saying they saw the ``bouncer''
attacking the Chilean man with punches and karate-style kicks.
|
| STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Police caught two fugitives accused
of killing four people in a nightclub massacre, ending a manhunt that
had rattled Sweden for days.
Guillermo Marquez Jara, 23, of Chile, and Tommy Zethraeus, 25,
a Swede, were arrested Wednesday night near the Swedish royal castle
just outside Stockholm.
Earlier, a 23-year-old man was arrested on charges of harboring
the men, who allegedly had opened fire on the trendy nightclub
early Sunday after a doorman refused them entry.
Three of the victims -- two female patrons and the doorman --
were killed immediately and 20 were wounded. A fourth woman died from
her wounds Tuesday. The dead all were in their early 20s.
Witnesses said the gunmen, wearing military camouflage jackets,
stood on the street and emptied the entire magazine of an automatic
rifle into the club entrance as patrons were leaving.
Mourners have piled flowers and candles at the entrance to the
nightclub, as newspapers and experts renewed a debate over a recent
increase in violent crime in the mostly peaceful country.
The motive for the shooting was not clear. Witnesses said the
gunmen had been arguing with the doorman after he refused them
entry, and then returned with guns vowing revenge.
Both suspects and the doorman, however, had criminal records,
according to Swedish newspaper reports. At one time, the doorman
himself reportedly had testified against one of the suspects in
court.
Police have refused to comment on a motive.
|
| From: [email protected] (Mats Winberg)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Stureplan murder trial ended
Date: 29 Jun 1995 15:32:32 GMT
Organization: Ericsson
The trial of the 4 accused of the Stureplan mass murder case
(where 4 people were shot dead and several wounded by machine gun
fire at the "Sturecompagniet" restuarant at Stureplan in Stockholm)
has ended. The accused were found guilty to murder or accomplicity
of murder. The shooter, TZ, were sentenced to life imprisonment.
The man who helped carry and conceal the weapon during the approach
to, and flight from the crime scene, GMJ, was sentenced to 10 years
in prison, escaping life sentence because the court found it unproven
that he was aware of TZ's intention to use the weapon to kill.
The remaining two, two brothers B1 and B2, have received their
sentences earlier. If my memory does not fail me, the younger got the
lenient sentence of 2 years because of his youth and that he was
dominated by his elder brother. The older brother got 8 years, a
harsher sentence probaly meted out because it was revealed during the
trial that he took a more active part in encouraging TJ and GMJ to
carry on with the deed, than was previously know.
None of the sentenced are going to be deported, either because they
are citizens or because they arrived in Sweden when they were minors.
The older brother, B1 , was involved in the killing of a Norwegian
outside a McDonald's restuarant a couple of years ago. Noone could be
convicted then because of lack of evidence.
The murder weapon, a Norwegian AG3 which was stolen in Norway, was
found in a lake outside Stockholm during the police investigation.
GMJ and TZ are also now under suspicion in a kidnapping case
where a businessman was kidnapped. The theory there is that they
where hired by someone to carry out this kidnapping.
Media here have also reported that the police is suspecting TZ
in the case of the "Collage" bombing ("Collage" is another
restuarant in Stockholm, no persons injured there).
These allegations may just be allegations, but they could also be
examples of the spin-off investigations that have started during the
Stureplan-investigation. These spin-offs have already resulted in the
apprehension and trial of a gun-dealer in Norrkoeping who sold guns
to criminals. The police have also found connections between criminal
groups which they were not aware existed.
The gun dealer affair have put the spotlight on flaws in Swedish gun
laws. It is impossible to get an automatic weapon legally if you are
an ordinary citizen, but if you are registered as a gun-dealer it is
possible. A survey have shown that there are far too many
"gun-dealers" in Sweden and that accordingly dealer licenses are handed out
in a sloppy and careless manner.
Meanwhile, the victims are still dead, robbed not of 2, 8, 10 or 15
years of their lives but of much more. One of the young women killed
was deaf by birth, and struggled very hard to overcome her handicap
and to educate herself to become a lawyer. As a teenager she travelled
alone to a College in the U.S. and when she got back she started as
a translator to sign language on the SVT, the Swedish state
television. According to media reports, she stood in the stairways
leading down to the door and when the first burst of fire which
killed the doorman occurrred, she did not hear and remained where she were as
others ran for cover. She was hit in the head, was resuscitated by
other persons at the scene, but died after an 11-hour long attempt
by surgeons to save her life.
It is not yet clear if the sentences will be appealed to higher court.
--
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Mats Winberg
Stockholm, Sweden
employed by, but not speaking for
Ericsson Telecom
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