Ausonius, who was apprehended in June 1992, was given a lifetime prison sentence following his 1995 conviction for one case of murder and ten attempted murders of immigrants, as well as eight bank robberies.
In last week’s court hearing on the matter, vice prosecutor Kristian Agneklev emphasized the seriousness of the crimes of which Ausonius had been convicted.
“The penalty for this crime is unique in Swedish legal history,” said Agneklev, who argued against shortening the prison sentence.
Ausonius’s lawyer Thomas Carlstedt pointed instead to how well his client had behaved in prison during the last eight years.
“But this is about the largest Swedish court case after the Palme-murder. There may be ‘political’ reasons as to why people don’t dare release him,” he said following the hearings, comparing Ausonius’s case to that of the unsolved murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.