John Ausonius is a Swedish citizen who has been convicted of murder in two countries. In Sweden he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the death of one man and the attempted murder of ten other people during attacks in Stockholm and Uppsala from August 1991 to January 1992, together with a series of bank robberies. In Germany a court in Frankfurt convicted him in February 2018 of the murder of a woman in 1992 and also imposed life imprisonment. The two killings took place in separate events, months apart and in different countries.
He was born Wolfgang Alexander Zaugg in Sweden in 1953. His mother was German and his father Swiss. As an adult he changed his name, first to John Stannerman and then to John Ausonius, a name taken from a Roman poet. He became a Swedish citizen in 1979. A Swedish court in 2012 linked his risk of sudden violence to autism and personality disorders. Bad investments had damaged his finances, and he turned to bank robbery to keep up his way of living. His early life before the 1990s is otherwise not on record.
Between August 1991 and January 1992 a series of attacks took place in the Stockholm and Uppsala areas. Eleven people were targeted. One of them, Jimmy Ranjbar, 34, died in November 1991. The others survived. The victims had no link to one another beyond dark hair or dark skin. The inquiry became the largest in Sweden since the investigation of the Palme assassination.
During the same months he carried out a series of bank robberies; the Court of Appeal convicted him of nine aggravated bank robberies.
He was arrested in Stockholm in June 1992. He denied the Swedish charges at trial.
Stockholm District Court gave its verdict on January 14, 1994. It convicted him of one murder, nine attempted murders and nine robberies, and acquitted him on two of the attempted murder charges because the evidence was insufficient. It sentenced him to life imprisonment.
In May 1995 the Svea Court of Appeal sentenced him to life imprisonment for one murder, ten attempted murders and nine aggravated bank robberies. A later court ruling, of 2008, listed the convictions as one murder, ten attempted murders, nine aggravated robberies, two attempted aggravated robberies and five offenses under the arms law. The reason the attempted murder count rose from nine to ten between the two courts is not on record.
In August 2000 he confessed to all ten attacks and to twenty bank robberies or attempted robberies. The Supreme Court found that the confessions did not justify changing the acquittals, because his credibility was low.
A life sentence in Sweden can be converted to a fixed term on application to Örebro District Court. On April 30, 2008 that court refused. It rated the penal value of the offenses as "more than particularly high," found a substantial risk of further violent crime despite a positive development, and noted that he had served almost 16 years. The National Board of Forensic Medicine rated his risk as medium. In November 2012 the court rejected an application for the third time, with the board then rating his risk as medium-high. In May 2010 the prison service's Director-General had supported a fixed term in a statement to the court; the court's ruling on that application is not on record.
In February 1992, while the Swedish attacks were still under investigation, a woman, Blanka Zmigrod, 68, was killed in Frankfurt am Main. About 36 hours earlier he had argued with her, accusing her of taking his electronic organizer, which prosecutors said held numbers for his foreign bank accounts. He left Germany for South Africa the next day and was arrested in Sweden in June.
German police found links to his Swedish case early. They interviewed him at a Swedish prison in 1996. He admitted being in Frankfurt and arguing with her but denied killing her. The inquiry was shelved for lack of further evidence. The case was reopened in 2014, as part of a nationwide review of suspected far-right killings.
On December 15, 2016, Södertörn District Court approved a German request for his extradition. He did not oppose it, on condition that any sentence be served in Sweden. He was transferred at the turn of 2016 and 2017. He was charged in Frankfurt with robbery and murder.
The trial before the Frankfurt Regional Court began in December 2017 and ran for nine hearing days. He denied the murder. His lawyer asked for an acquittal. The prosecutor asked for life imprisonment and argued that the usual maximum was not enough. The case rested on circumstantial evidence.
On February 21, 2018 the presiding judge, Bärbel Stock, announced the verdict: guilty of murder ("Mord"), life imprisonment. The court also ordered preventive detention (Sicherungsverwahrung), holding that he remained very dangerous. The court found that he wanted to get the device back and take revenge. Whether the killing had any further motive was not established.
His lawyer announced an appeal on points of law ("Revision"). On November 27, 2018 Germany's Federal Court of Justice rejected the appeal, so the conviction and the life sentence became final.
Germany handed him back to Sweden in January 2019, as the Frankfurt prosecutor's office confirmed. He continues to serve the Swedish life sentence. The German life sentence makes it very unlikely that he will be released.
On October 30, 2025 the Administrative Court in Karlstad rejected his appeal against the prison service's refusal of unsupervised leave from a Swedish prison. He had been granted unsupervised leave in 2016 but not since the 2018 German conviction. The court weighed the German conviction in its risk assessment and noted two warnings he received in 2025 in connection with leave. The National Board of Forensic Medicine rated his risk of serious reoffending as "medium high with a tendency towards low." He had then been imprisoned for 33 years.
The counts are given as nine or ten attempted murders and eight or nine bank robberies. The Swedish district court acquitted him on two attempted murder charges for lack of evidence, and the Supreme Court later left those acquittals standing. The number of people harmed is given as nine, ten or eleven, including the man who died. His confession of August 2000 covered all the attacks. The Frankfurt conviction rested on circumstantial evidence, and he has always denied it.
1953: Born Wolfgang Alexander Zaugg in Sweden.
1979: Becomes a Swedish citizen.
August 1991 to January 1992: Attacks in Stockholm and Uppsala; Jimmy Ranjbar dies in November 1991.
February 1992: Blanka Zmigrod killed in Frankfurt.
June 1992: Arrested in Stockholm.
January 14, 1994: Stockholm District Court verdict, life imprisonment.
May 1995: Svea Court of Appeal, life imprisonment.
1996: German police interview him in a Swedish prison; the Frankfurt inquiry is later shelved.
August 2000: Confesses to the Swedish attacks and bank robberies.
April 30, 2008: Örebro District Court refuses a fixed term.
November 2012: Third application refused.
2014: Frankfurt case reopened.
December 15, 2016: Södertörn District Court approves extradition.
Early January 2017: Transferred to Germany.
December 2017: Frankfurt trial begins.
February 21, 2018: Frankfurt Regional Court convicts him of murder; life imprisonment.
November 27, 2018: Federal Court of Justice rejects the appeal.
January 2019: Returned to Sweden.
October 30, 2025: Karlstad Administrative Court rejects his appeal on unsupervised leave.