Swedish police are investigating a double shooting after two bodies were found in a burnt-out car rented by a British citizen.
The driver and passenger were shot dead on Sunday as they drove across the Danish-Swedish border into the southern city of Malmo, Aftonbladet daily reported.
The Toyota RAV4 rented from Copenhagen Airport was subsequently set on fire in an industrial area in Malmö. The victim’s identity has not been revealed.
A Foreign Office spokesman said support was being provided to the families of two British men missing in Sweden.
The car was rented by a British citizen and Swedish forensic science teams are working to identify the victim, Aftonbladet reported on Tuesday.
Kirsten Gosser of Swedish police said police were appealing for witnesses who saw a black Toyota car on the industrial estate of Forsey where the shooting took place.
She added: “We are interested in speaking to anyone who has seen the car. It is a black Toyota registered in Denmark, model RAV4.
“We don’t think they were Danish citizens, that’s what we can say right now… It’s interesting that you think the observations could be related to this incident in that time period.”
Police declined to comment on whether the killings were linked to gang violence when asked by Swedish newspaper Express. Interpol has also reportedly become involved in the investigation because the victims crossed international borders during their journey.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: “We are providing support to the families of two British men who have gone missing in Sweden and are in contact with local authorities.”
Sweden has been mired in conflicts between gangs over weapons and drug trafficking in recent years, and has the second-highest death rate from gun crime in Europe, after Albania.
Last September was the Scandinavian country’s deadliest month on record for gun deaths since 2016, with two people killed in separate shootings, bringing the monthly total to 11.
In the first incident, an 18-year-old man was killed in the evening at a busy sports ground in Mälarhöjden, a suburb of Mälarhöjden in Stockholm’s southern suburbs. Later that night, a second man was shot dead in Jodbro, south of Stockholm.
In 2022, there were 391 shooting incidents in Sweden, of which 62 people died.
In 2022, the per capita gun murder rate in the capital Stockholm will be approximately 30 times that of London.
