A man was shot dead in his car at around 21.00 on Tuesday 31st January, while a nearby police station was badly damaged in a fire bombing in the early hours of the next morning.

The two incidents are not thought to be connected, but officials believe the attack on the police station could be a response to the more robust crime fighting measures recently introduced in the troubled district. Despite a focus on searching for illegal weapons, last week’s murder marks the eighth in the area since May.

“The entire Swedish police force stands behind Malmö. We have received reinforcements and continue to work under previous guidelines,” Hans Nordin of the Skåne Police told news agency TT.

Börje Sjöholm of the Malmö police added that they are searching for clues on the two most recent incidents, but that they need help from the community. “It’s important that those who know anything dare to come forward. We protect our witnesses,” he said.

Two people have already been fatally shot in Malmö since the start of the year, leading to questions about whether the additional policing has only led to more violence. Nordin admitted that they are disappointed, but insisted that the initiative still has potential.

“No, it’s no failure. But it is very embarrassing that another murder has occurred, and very irritating that we couldn’t do anything to prevent it,” Nordin told TT.

Malmö Mayor Ilmar Reeplau also expressed his frustration over the matter. Speaking to the Sydsvenskan newspaper after the latest events, he said, “It’s bloody awful. We have had a massive police operation on Malmö’s streets, but the violence is only continuing. The Swedish law system is being ignored and is not respected any longer.”

The ‘Skara Cannibal’, who killed and ate parts of his girlfriend, and the ‘Vampire Woman’, who stabbed a father of four to death, met in Karsuddens psychiatric facility near Katrineholm and found plenty in common after chatting online.

”We got together on November 13th,” ‘Vampire Woman’ Michelle Gustafsson told Expressen. “’Do you want to be my girlfriend?’ he asked on MSN. Then we decided to get engaged, which we did on December 9th,” she added.

Both of the inmates made headlines in Sweden for their highly unusual crimes. Gustafsson claimed she did not remember murdering a father of four in Stockholm in 2010, but wrote on her personal blog about killing people and posed for pictures with a bloody mouth and weapons.

Isakin Jonsson, the ‘Skara Cannibal’, was convicted in 2011 for stabbing his girlfriend to death, cutting off her head and then eating parts of her body. He showed no remorse during his trial and could not explain why he had killed her.

“That’s something I also wonder about. I trust the doctors. There was no motive whatsoever. We were a couple with a future together. I’ve never felt this way with a girl before,” Expressen reported him saying during the trial. However, he apparently told the newspaper later that he only ate his ex to secure psychiatric treatment instead of jail time.

Speaking about his new romance, Jonsson said, “I love Michelle. I have never met anyone like her. I’d like to lead a non-criminal life.”

The engagement may be a long one, as both inmates are serving non-fixed sentences, but the uncertainty has not prevented the couple from planning their future. “We want to get to live together, keep dogs and spend time on our hobbies, piercing and tattoos,” Gustafsson told Expressen.

Staff members at Willy’s supermarket in Vara confronted the pair last Sunday, but were taken by surprise when they suddenly jumped from their chairs and ran for the door.

After the thieves made their speedy getaway leaving one of the wheelchairs behind, a secret compartment packed with stolen coffee was discovered. It is not clear whether the men escaped with other concealed goods.

“We are labelling this as robbery; a very sophisticated attempt,” Ulf Lörstad, spokesman of Vara county, told the Göteborgsposten (GP) newspaper.

Police are confident that the men, believed to be in the thirties, will still be caught thanks to evidence left behind in the form of the jettisoned wheelchair.

“We’ll be making a forensic investigation. Hopefully there will be traces, and if the men are in our register, then it will be hard for them to deny this crime,” Lörstad told the paper.

He added, however, that the unusually large exhibit was complicated to process. “The wheelchair didn’t fit into our response car, so the youngest member of our force was given the task of wheeling it back to the station,” Lörstad said.

The administrator, who has worked for Migrationsverket for 30 years, also admits assaulting a female colleague after she reported him for making racist remarks.

The first incident came when the proud asylum-seeking parents asked the Swede who he thought their newborn baby looked like during an interview. Rather than picking either the mother or the father as expected, the man replied “Saddam Hussein,” according to a report by The Local.

On another occasion, the administrator was apparently perturbed by a woman wearing a headscarf in the reception area, and afterwards asked the female colleague who dealt with her, “How does it feel to talk to ‘one of those’?”

The co-worker, who the man had also boasted to about his quip to the Iraqi parents, reported him for both incidents. After he received a reprimand from the bosses for his actions, the administrator then deliberately pushed the woman twice in front of other shocked employees as he passed her in the corridor.

The man has admitted to all the accusations but claims the Saddam Hussein comment was meant as a joke. He apparently acknowledges that it was inappropriate, but maintains that women conducting business with authorities should not be wearing headscarves.

Supervisors have had numerous other conversations with the man about his attitude towards asylum seekers and his colleagues since 2007, according to a report from the disciplinary committee obtained by The Local.

“The incidents described above show, according to the judgement of the section head, that the reprimands have had no effect,” the section head wrote in his report, adding that “under no circumstances can violent behaviour and the like be tolerated in the workplace”.

The man has been transferred to a role where he has no public contact while disciplinary measures are considered.

The bus trip, organised by Allt åt Alla (Everything for Everyone), aims to debunk the myth that Sweden is a classless nation by driving through the capital’s most densely populated area, Fisksätra, before taking their passengers to Saltsjöbaden to see how the other half live.

Not all of Saltsjöbaden’s well-to-do residents are happy about being a tourist attraction, however, and one has apparently filed an official complaint with the local police.

Not feeling much sympathy for the well-to-do, Ulla Krogh of Nacka Police told the local newspaper, Näcka-Värmdö Posten, that “Anyone is free to organise something like this”.

Highlights of the tour include a visit to the Grand Hotel, an ogle at the sea views from “Oscar’s” house, which featured in the comedy series Solsidan, and an audience with Rolf, the owner of Sweden’s most expensive home.

On its website, Allt åt Alla describes itself as a “revolutionary organisation” with an aim of developing a hate of the class system in sightseers. The Saltsjöbaden tours are proving popular and selling out quickly, according to the group.

The 31 year-old was arrested in September last year after Elias, 4, and Tevin, 8, were both found dead in a swimming area in Sigtuna near Stockholm.

After first denying responsibility, the woman later admitted to pushing the boys, neither of whom could swim, into the water. She claims she also planned to kill herself afterwards but couldn’t go through with it.

“Tevin didn’t scream but Elias screamed for a long time,” she told police, according to Aftonbladet newspaper. “It was loud and he shouted ‘no, no, no’. We were all supposed to die,” she added.

“I just stood there and cried. The idea was that I would jump in too, but I was too scared,” she said, according to the paper.

The woman, who is now in a psychiatric hospital after tests revealed she is suffering from a serious mental illness, was apparently experiencing severe financial problems at the time of the deaths and had become increasingly unstable.

“I felt I couldn’t take care of them. That it would be easier if we all died. I had let them down. I had lost all hope of taking care of them,” she apparently told police.

Eva Möller, the mother’s lawyer, told Expressen that her client is “is terribly upset about what she has done”.

”I regret everything. I have killed my children and don’t know how I will be able to live,” said the woman during the trial, according to the newspaper.

The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL) has petitioned the country’s National Board of Health and Welfare, citing a strong correlation between an “alarmingly high suicide rate” and transgender people who are denied surgery.

“Breast implants for transgender women are, in many cases, a very important measure for them to function with their new identity and allow them to fit in as women in everyday life,” RFSL wrote. “Plastic surgery for transsexual patients, to a large extent, saves lives,” it added.

The organisation pointed out that the suicide rate among patients denied the procedure is 30 to 40 percent, compare with 1.6 percent in the general population. It also claims that there are inconsistencies in how the issue is handled in different parts of the country, citing Södra Älvsborgs hospital in Alingsås, western Sweden, which recently denied a transgender woman’s application for the surgery.

“It’s not acceptable that a small and vulnerable group of transgender people such as this transsexual group is given different rights to care depending on where in the country they live,” RFSL wrote. The organisation is calling for national guidelines, emphasising “an individual’s value and right to decide over their identity”.

“RFSL demands that care for transgender people be given under the same conditions regardless of where one lives in Sweden,” the group wrote, according to a report by The Local.

No applications from Icelandic organisations or individuals were received by the Nordic Council to meet with its council members before their own meeting which begins in Oslo today.

The public in all the Nordic countries were invited to meet council members to press them on important subjects or get them on board with their causes or points-of-view.

A total of just four meeting requests were received; mostly from Norway. The meetings held were mostly about transportation between Norway and Sweden and citizenship rights in the Nordic countries.

This was the first time the public were invited to interact directly with the Nordic Council in this manner and among the stated goals is to stimulate open debate within the Council and to open the Council up to the people.

Tina Bostrup, an employee of the Nordic Council, told Vísir.is that she hopes Icelanders show the meeting initiative more interest when the Nordic Council meets again in Iceland at the end of March.

Casual research indicates that today’s first attempt failed primarily because most people did not know about it. That is unlikely to be the case next time.

Several dead felines were also found in the garage, along with a small kitten that could only use its front legs.

Inspectors reported that most of the animals they came across stunk of urine and were malnourished or neglected in some way. The district court could not prove, however, that the couple intended to torment the cats.

The pair both denied the allegations, with the man claiming that most of the cats had been let into the house by visitors and did not belong to them. “It is drivel that we have owned 53 cats,” he allegedly told interrogators at the time.

“It was a serious offence,” prosecutor Ida Arnell told the Metro newspaper. She added that she was happy with the verdict, even though the couple only received probationary sentences and small fines. “Although it was a serious offence I didn’t really think that a prison sentence was necessary,” Arnell said.

As many as nine rabbits disappeared from garden hutches in Säffle in a week over the New Year period, while another two were reported missing last weekend.

“It’s been 14 days now, and I still hope to see Molly again,” Diana Strömsmoen, whose long-eared friend was among the first to go missing, told The Local. “But I don’t think I ever will.”

“We went out in the snow with torches to feed her, but she wasn’t there,” she said. “The whole family was upset and I put up pictures in the local supermarkets and flyers in the neighbours’ letterboxes. It wasn’t long before I got a response, but they weren’t ringing about Molly – the neighbours had lost one too!”

Police admit that they are scratching their heads over the rabbit snatching, but say they are keeping their ears to the ground. “It’s impossible to solve when we don’t have anything to go on,” Hasse Ericson of the Säffle police told the Aftonbladet.

The local media reported the story in the hope of increasing pet-owner vigilance and deterring the thieves, but many believe the publicity may have encouraged copycat kidnappings. Police are warning residents to secure hutches at night, which is when the animals are disappearing.

“I have so many theories about what happened to Molly. At first I thought an animal took her, or that she escaped,” Strömsmoen said. “But the cage door was shut, so I feel like she must have been stolen.”