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Suspect a repeat sex offender
26/04/2008 17:02 - (SA)
Paris - The suspected killer of a Swedish teenager whose partly charred body was found in a wood outside Paris is a repeat sex offender, sources close to the investigation said on Saturday.
The 51-year-old suspect, who was arrested on Friday, has previously spent some 20 years in prison for violent acts, rape and sexual attacks sometimes coupled with kidnapping, they said.
His first brush with the law was at 15 for armed robbery. He was then subsequently convicted for raping and kidnapping a young woman. He raped two others - a 21-year-old woman and a 12-year-old girl.
Meanwhile, the father of the Swedish woman who was murdered in Paris last week said on Saturday he and his family were relieved by the arrest of a suspect in the killing, the Swedish tabloid Expressen reported.
"It's a relief," he said, adding: "We're trying hard to get through this."
The victim, identified as Susanna Zetterberg, was found in a forest in Chantilly, north of the capital, on April 19 with four bullets in the head. She was handcuffed, had also been knifed, and her body was partly charred.
She had gone missing on her way home from a Paris nightclub just hours earlier.
The victim had gone to a nightclub and after taking a taxi at 04:00 sent a text message to a friend saying the driver "doesn't look nice".
The suspect, a man who posed as a taxi driver, was arrested in a western suburb of the capital on Friday, a police official said, and his Paris flat was searched for four hours.
He was spotted getting rid of potential evidence in Paris' famed Bois de Boulogne, a sprawling park, before his arrest.
Sources close to the investigation said the man's vehicle was being minutely examined on Saturday for possible clues, including DNA traces.
Another young Swedish woman was recently raped by a fake Paris driver after she left a city nightclub. She was left in a western Paris suburb.
In France, the brutal murder has been a top news story while in Sweden, where the victim's name has not been disclosed in line with media traditions, the coverage has been less intense, primarily reported by the tabloid press and citing French media.
Sweden's national newspapers and media outlets have provided only brief news coverage, focusing largely on the police investigation.
The murder comes just weeks after Sweden experienced an outpouring of grief over the abduction and killing of a 10-year-old girl who had been missing for a week, a story which continues to make headlines.
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