Former Gdr Assassin Arrested

The mysterious death of a Swedish journalist nearly 20 years ago came under fresh scrutiny last night after German police revealed they had arrested a former assassin of east Germany's communist regime.

Detectives said the man was a member of the top secret "assassination squad" which, in the 1970s and 1980s, carried out a string of killings of people considered enemies of the German Democratic Republic. The killers took orders directly from the most senior communist politicians, including the republic's leader, the late Erich Honecker.

The arrest may be the first step towards solving the many mysterious deaths, from the early 1970s onward, of high-profile opponents of the east German regime.

The former assassin is being linked with the unsolved murder of a Swedish television journalist, Cats Falk, and her friend Lena Grans. The two young women disappeared in November 1984.

Their bodies were retrieved six months later from a Stockholm canal.

The GDR government apparently murdered Ms Falk after she began investigating the illegal shipment of weapons by Swedish companies to east Germany. German prosecutors believe the weapons were destined for Iran, which was at war with Iraq.

Detectives are also investigating the disappearance of Dieter Vogel, who worked for east German intelligence but was caught passing information to Washington, and a Hamburg businessman who died in suspicious circumstances.