An illegal immigrant has been arrested over the murder of an American nanny who had given him shelter at her Vienna apartment. The 24-year-old Gambian had been wanted by police since the death of Lauren Mann, 25, from Grand Junction, Colorado last month. He was arrested on Thursday in Bern, Switzerland, at an asylum center there after his mobile phone use was traced. The location of the arrest suggests he was trying to use the immigration system to avoid being returned to his home country. He was named by prosecutors in Austria only as Abdou I., under a legal convention that the surnames of alleged criminals are not released until they are convicted. No mugshot was released by authorities in either country. Austrian newspaper Krone also reported that he was already known to police, having raped an underage girl in Germany. The case is likely to highlight concerns which are growing in Europe over sex-crime related to the wave of immigrants arriving in the continent – although Abdou I. is from West Africa rather than the Middle East, from where the vast majority are currently arriving. Austrian authorities will now have to request his extradition from neighboring Switzerland. Nina Bussek, spokeswoman for the Austrian State Prosecutor, told Daily Mail Online: ‘A suspect has been arrested in Switzerland. We can’t provide any further details at the moment. ‘The arrest is supported by concrete evidence, but I can not say what this evidence consist of, since it is part of an ongoing investigation and cannot be made public. ‘We have handed in a extradition request at a Vienna court. Whether they have made a formal request by the Swiss authorities yet I can’t say, but the request has been made by our office to have the suspect handed over to Austrian police.’ Local reports in Austria suggested that the Gambian had failed in his attempt to stay in the country but had been taken in out of compassion by Mann to avoid him being deported. The arrest also meant that prosecutors confirmed that they believe Mann was murdered. Initially they had said they were waiting for toxicology tests after an autopsy found the nanny and part-time student had been suffocated. One theory they had been revealed to have considered is whether the death was a ‘sex game’ gone wrong – which was angrily rejected by her family. By announcing that they are treating the case as a murder and Abdou I. as a murder suspect, prosecutors are effectively dropping that theory.

Heart of a man.