Police trainee convicted of murder
A trainee policeman has been convicted of killing a 32-year old woman, and sentenced to life in jail.
The 36-year old was found to have murdered the the woman last September. The court did not rule on exactly where or when the crime took place - there are no witnesses and the convicted man continues to protest his innocence.
The woman's remains were found in the woods eight months after she was killed. The Uppsala district court ruled that she was killed some time during the afternoon of 8th September, the last day she was seen alive. The man now convicted was the last person to be seen alive with the woman.
The woman was reported missing on 9th September. The trainee policeman was identified as a suspect early in the police's investigation. He was arrested last autumn and was held for a week on suspicion of kidnapping, but was later released.
After eight months of searching, police found the woman's body by a woodland track in Valö, near Uppsala. The body had been wrapped in a tarpaulin. The trainee policeman was arrested again.
In its ruling, the court wrote that it was proven that the man had both motive an capacity to kill the woman. His account of events, which he changed at least three times during the investigation, was found by the court to be untrustworthy.
The court ruled that the murder had been premeditated, and there were no extenuating circumstances to justify anything less than a life sentence.
The convicted man's lawyer, Leif Ericksson, was not surprised by the verdict.
"It was clear when he was denied bail that he would be convicted," he said, but added that he didn't agree with the ruling.
"The weakness in the judgment is that we still don't know how the woman died. This means that we don't know what happened to her," he daid.
Ericksson admitted that his client's credibility had been damaged by the fact that he had changed his account of events, but he said he expected that he would appeal the verdict.
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The 36-year old was found to have murdered the the woman last September. The court did not rule on exactly where or when the crime took place - there are no witnesses and the convicted man continues to protest his innocence.
The woman's remains were found in the woods eight months after she was killed. The Uppsala district court ruled that she was killed some time during the afternoon of 8th September, the last day she was seen alive. The man now convicted was the last person to be seen alive with the woman.
The woman was reported missing on 9th September. The trainee policeman was identified as a suspect early in the police's investigation. He was arrested last autumn and was held for a week on suspicion of kidnapping, but was later released.
After eight months of searching, police found the woman's body by a woodland track in Valö, near Uppsala. The body had been wrapped in a tarpaulin. The trainee policeman was arrested again.
In its ruling, the court wrote that it was proven that the man had both motive an capacity to kill the woman. His account of events, which he changed at least three times during the investigation, was found by the court to be untrustworthy.
The court ruled that the murder had been premeditated, and there were no extenuating circumstances to justify anything less than a life sentence.
The convicted man's lawyer, Leif Ericksson, was not surprised by the verdict.
"It was clear when he was denied bail that he would be convicted," he said, but added that he didn't agree with the ruling.
"The weakness in the judgment is that we still don't know how the woman died. This means that we don't know what happened to her," he daid.
Ericksson admitted that his client's credibility had been damaged by the fact that he had changed his account of events, but he said he expected that he would appeal the verdict.
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