Fingerprints may link Costa suspect to UK attacks

The fingerprints of a Briton alleged to have killed two teenagers in Spain are being sent to Scotland Yard to find out if he committed a series of sexual assaults in London almost 20 years ago.

Spanish police believe Tony King is really the "Holloway Strangler" Tony Bromwich, jailed for 10 years in 1986 for attacking seven women. He was arrested last Thursday and confessed he killed 17-year-old Sonia Carabantes in August and 19-year-old Rocio Wanninkhof in 1999. Detectives said DNA samples from the 38-year-old matched samples from the crime scenes.

Mr King, originally from Holloway in north London, apparently told officers he had raped at least three other women in Spain. In Britain, five of the seven victims of the Holloway attacks were throttled with rope.

One had her face smashed against the pavement, breaking her nose and jaw. Bromwich was released after five years. He was jailed again for robbing a woman at gunpoint and freed in 1996. He is said to have changed his name before moving to the Costa del Sol in 1997. Interpol is sending copies of his fingerprints to the Metropolitan Police to see if they match the prints taken from Bromwich. A police source said: "We are pretty certain it's him."

Mr King was arrested after his girlfriend told police that he had returned home on the morning Ms Carabantes disappeared with bloodstained clothes and a scratched face.

Crowds shouted abuse at the suspect on Sunday as he left the Civil Guard barracks in the small town of Coin, where he was questioned for more than 10 hours before going to Malaga prison. He was put in isolation for his own protection and placed on suicide watch. A second Briton, Robert Graham, is also in custody and being questioned on suspicion of helping King cover up the crimes.

The Spanish teenagers were found strangled and naked. Ms Carabantes disappeared from her home town of Coin on the morning of 14 August. Her corpse was found five days later.

Ms Wanninkhof had been stabbed 11 times and her throat had been slashed. She was found three weeks after she disappeared from Mijas in October 1999. She had worked as an au pair for Cliff Stanford, founder of the technology company Redbus Interhouse.

A friend of the Wanninkhof family, Dolores Vazquez, was imprisoned for the teenager's murder but released after a retrial. Detectives are re- examining the unsolved cases of other young women murdered since Mr King has been living in Spain.