Life sentence the 'only option': prosecutor

Prosecutors are demanding life imprisonment in the ongoing case of the 28-year-old who killed a female guard at the Flemingsberg remand facility south of Stockholm.

• Fatal beating an 'execution': prosecutor (5 Oct 11)
• Inmate beats female prison guard to death (3 Oct 11)

The accused, who has refused to answer questions, has admitted to his crimes, and understands that he will be spending a long time behind bars, according to his lawyer Lars Hedsäter.

"But he wants a fixed sentence," Hedsäter said.

However, prosecutor Mark Hankkio was adamant that for an attack of such brutality only a life sentence would be appropriate.

On Friday, the Södertälje District Court was shown a film behind closed doors recorded by internal security cameras in the prison.

The film reportedly shows the accused raining more than 50 blows on the 25-year-old guard with her own baton, in an attack lasting over a minute and a half.

Despite being rushed to hospital, the woman died less than an hour later.

The attack, which took place in the exercise yard, was seen by several witnesses.

One prisoner described how he was on the other side of the yard when he saw the warden approaching the 28-year-old. Suddenly he heard her screaming and saw her being attacked.

"I saw the bastard beating her, he just punched and punched and punched,"he said.

"I couldn't continue watching."

Speaking about the attack at the time, criminology professor Jerzy Sarnecki from Stockholm University said the incident was a "unique event".

"I can't remember a similar case like this and I've been working in criminology for 35 years now," he told the TT news agency

He added that Swedish remand centres are some of the most dangerous workplaces around.

An older female guard, who had rushed to try and save her young colleague, revealed that she has been on sick leave with severe stress symptoms ever since the incident, adding that she is too frightened to even go down to the laundry room.

Her impression of the inmate was of someone devoid of emotion.

"He was completely empty. He answered when spoken to, but that was it. Like a cardboard cutout," she said to TT.