There have been many legal twists since the two murders in Högsbo, Gothenburg in 2003, when a woman and her neighbor were found dead with a few weeks in between.
The woman's husband was acquitted a few years ago in the district court, but is still suspected of having ordered the two murders.
Getting a new trial against him has not yet succeeded. Now, however, the prosecutor has received confirmation that he is being held in custody in his home country of China.
I have received a formal notification that the man, who is in an open case in the court of appeal here, is detained in China, says prosecutor Ulrika Bentelius Egelrud.
Convicted – and acquitted
According to previous information, the man has also been suspected of murdering his then-wife in Thailand in 2013. But what the suspicions against him in China are now about, and whether there are connections to the Swedish court case, the prosecutor cannot go into.
No, I cannot say much more. When it comes to this type of information from another country, we must respect the secrecy they want to have there, she says.
The man was held in custody in Sweden for a period already in 2003, but then kept himself hidden until he was arrested in London in 2014.
He was initially sentenced to life imprisonment for instigating the murder of his wife in 2016. But when the trial in Gothenburg's district court had to be retried due to bias, he was completely acquitted, released, and left Sweden.
"Hard to say"
Since then, the court of appeal has in vain tried to summon him to a new trial.
In August, SVT News West reported that the man had been arrested in China. It is now also officially confirmed, but what it means for the Swedish court case is too early to say, according to Ulrika Bentelius Egelrud.
How it will develop now is hard to say. But that there will be another legal trial is the long-term goal, she says.
