STOCKHOLM, November 7, 2010 (AFP) - Police said Sunday they had arrested a 38-year-old man suspected of murder and attempted killings in the southern city of Malmö amid a manhunt for a potential immigrant-shooting sniper.

The man is suspected of one murder in October 2009 and seven attempted murders between then and October 2010, prosecutor Solveig Wollstad said during a press conference broadcast on public television.

Wollstad did not disclose the suspect's name and refrained from officially linking him to the man Swedish press have dubbed "the new laserman".

She said the man "denies the crimes for which he is blamed."

Malmoe police announced in late October they were investigating whether a lone shooter with racist motives was behind some 15 attacks, killing one person and injuring many others.

The suspect may even have committed unsolved murders dating as far back as 2003.

The announcement has spread panic in the city and the incidents bear a chilling similarity to the case of an immigrant-shooting sniper in Stockholm in the early 1990s nicknamed "Laserman".