Second arrest over Costa murders

The killings have outraged Spain

A second Briton has been arrested in connection with the murder of two women in southern Spain.

Robert Graham, 39, from Manchester, was remanded in custody on Tuesday on suspicion he was an accomplice to Tony King, who is accused of murdering 17-year-old Sonia Carabantes and 19-year-old Rocio Wanninkhof.

British consulate officials were attempting to get in touch with Mr Graham to offer assistance, the Foreign Office said.

Police sources told the BBC on Tuesday that King's fingerprints matched those of the so-called "Holloway Strangler", who was jailed for 10 years in 1986 for a series of sexual assaults on women.

King - or Tony Bromwich as he was then known - was convicted of a number of sexual assaults on women in London 17 years ago.

Scratches

The 38-year-old, who had been working as a barman on the Costa del Sol, has released letters in Spanish and English from prison in Malaga to a British newspaper, apologising to the mothers of the two teenagers and begging their forgiveness.

Tony King, said to be Tony Bromwich, has confessed to the murders

He says he has confessed everything in the hope they do not have to suffer any more.

King was arrested after his girlfriend told police he had returned home on the morning of Sonia's disappearance with blood on his clothes and scratches on his face.

Spanish police said he has also admitted to raping at least three other women.

'Jekyll and Hyde'

The murder of Miss Carabantes has dominated the Spanish media since she disappeared on 14 August while returning home from a fiesta.

Her body was found five days later.

She had been strangled, beaten and stripped but there was no evidence of sexual assault.

Miss Wanninkhof disappeared from her home on 9 October, 1999 and was found strangled and naked. She had not been sexually assaulted.

Before reinventing himself as Tony King, Bromwich was found guilty of choking five London women unconscious with a piece of electrical cable or rope and then molesting them.

Sentencing him to 10 years in prison an Old Bailey judge called Bromwich a "Jekyll and Hyde monster" whose wicked personality was caused by sexual inadequacies.

Bromwich was granted parole in 1991 but sent back to prison eight weeks later for robbing a woman at knifepoint.

He was re-released in 1993.