Sweden: Woman 'killed toddlers in jealous hammer attack'

A Swedish prosecutor filed murder charges against a German woman in a hammer attack that left two toddlers dead and their mother with serious injuries.

Prosecutor Frieda Gummesson said the 32-year-old woman entered the family’s home in March and bludgeoned the children and their mother in a rampage spurred by jealousy.

In the charges filed at the Vastmanland District Court, Ms Gummesson said the woman was upset that her ex-boyfriend had started a new relationship with the children’s mother.

The German woman, whose name was withheld in line with Swedish privacy rules, denies involvement in the attack in Arboga, about 95 miles west of Stockholm.

She told investigators she was in the area to study rune stones, boulders with Viking-age inscriptions scattered around the Swedish countryside.

“My client denies (the charges) most decidedly. She is totally innocent,” said Per-Ingvar Ekblad, the woman’s defence lawyer.

Mr Ekblad questioned the prosecutor’s evidence in the case, saying that there was no DNA evidence linking his client to the crime.

Ms Gummesson has built her case on testimony from more than 50 witnesses as well as handwritten electronic records she claims proves that the German woman was resorting to “increasingly drastic measures” to stop her former boyfriend’s new relationship.

According to the charges, the woman entered the family’s home in Arboga on March 17, armed with a “hammer or hammer-like object”, and struck them with repeated blows to their heads and bodies with the intent to kill.

The children – aged one and three – died from their injuries. Their mother survived the attack, but was in hospital for weeks.

The woman was detained in Hanover, Germany, days after the attack and later extradited to Sweden.

The trial is expected to start next week. If convicted, she could face between 10 years and life in prison.