The woman was rushed with serious injuries to Gällivare hospital in the early hours of Sunday morning where she was declared dead.

“Doctors ascertained that she was dead,” said Erik Kummo at Norrbotten police.

According to the officer ambulance staff who had been called to the couple’s home had made repeated attempts to resuscitate the woman.

Police were called to the home shortly after 3am on Sunday and arrested the man. He is now being held on suspicion of murder.

“I don’t know if it was the man himself or someone else who made the alarm call,” Kummo said.

The officer did not want to go into detail regarding the type of violence the woman was subjected to nor what can have been the underlying motives for the killing. He was neither willing to confirm the arrested man nor the dead woman’s ages.

“But there is a large age difference between them,” he said.

The apartment was cordoned off and police technicians conducted an examination of the scene later on Sunday.