A jealous brute who hacked his former girlfriend’s new lover to death with an axe killed an earlier girlfriend in exactly the same way, it has emerged.

Azerbaijani man Elchin Agaev will go on trial at the district court in Detmold, western Germany, on 9th January accused of the murder of Andrej F., 39.

Prosecutors say he crept into the home of his ex-girlfriend, Olga M., in Kalletal on 18th June and killed her new partner with an axe blow to the head as he slept.

They say he then dragged 25-year-old Olga, who was lying in the same bed, to the bathroom, where he raped her.

Then, they say, he forced her and her two children into Andrej’s car and drove them to Rinteln, where he was stopped by police over his erratic driving.

Agaev, who did not have a driving licence, then got out of the car and ran away, with a police officer falling and breaking his leg while chasing him.

He was caught at the Polish border about six weeks later after he inadvertently gave himself away by listing his mobile phone number on a new Facebook account.

He was arrested, remanded in custody, and has been exercising his right to remain silent ever since.

The verdict is scheduled for 6th February and prosecutors are demanding life imprisonment.

Victim Olga has since returned to her native Ukraine with her children.

And now, say German media, the Public Prosecutor’s Office has received new, damning evidence about Agaev’s past from authorities in Ukraine.

It transpires that he was sentenced in 2012 to nine years in prison for murdering his then-girlfriend during a row.

Shockingly, it has emerged, he also killed her with an axe.

Chief Prosecutor Christopher Imig said: “Previously he had attacked the woman with a knife. According to the verdict, the dispute was not about jealousy.”

Earlier reports had told how Olga and Agaev had moved to Germany after Russia invaded Ukraine, but their relationship quickly fell apart.

They had only been together for eight months.

Agaev is not the father of Olga’s children, who were aged two and five at the time of the horror.

Victim Andrej was from Kazakhstan but had lived in Germany since 1996. He was married with two sons.

He and his wife worked housing refugees, which is how it is believed he had met Olga.