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Woman charged over sledgehammer murder

A woman whose partner died while the pair were on a sailing trip on the west coast of Sweden last year has been charged with his murder.

Published: 4 January 2008 11:22 CET

Prosecutors handed documents to Uddevalla District Court on Friday detailing allegations against the woman. She is suspected of beating him over the head repeatedly with a sledgehammer before pushing him into the sea, where he drowned.

The woman has confessed to manslaughter and serious assault, but will plead not guilty to the charge of murder.

The dead man, who was 48, was found in the water on October 10th after the woman arrived alone on their sailing boat at a marina in Almösund on the island of Tjörn, off Sweden’s west coast.

The woman initially said that her partner had fallen overboard. Significant amounts of blood found on the boat and the injuries on the man’s body, which was found a short while later, led prosecutors to arrest the woman for murder.

The couple had been together for a long time, but were planning to separate at the time of the killing. The man had said he was frightened about how the woman would react to the separation.

Nordic justice ministers meet tech giants on gangs using apps to hire 'child soldiers'

Denmark’s justice minister, Peter Hummelgaard, said in a press release that he hoped to use the meeting on Friday afternoon to discuss how to stop social media and messaging apps being used by gang criminals, who Danish police revealed earlier this year were using them to recruit so-called “child soldiers” to carry out gang killings.

“We have seen many examples of how the gangs are using social media and encrypted messaging services to plan serious crimes and recruit very young people to do their dirty work,” Hummelgaard said. “My Nordic colleagues and I agree that a common front is needed to get a grip on this problem.”

As well as recruitment, lists have been found spreading on social media detailing the payments on offer for various criminal services.

Hummelgaard said he would “insist that the tech giants live up to their responsibilities so that their platforms do not act as hotbeds for serious crimes” at the meeting, which will take place at a summit of Nordic justice ministers in Uppsala, Sweden.

In August, Hummelgaard held a meeting in Copenhagen with Sweden’s justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer, at which the two agreed to work harder to tackle cross-border organised crime, which has seen a series of Swedish youth arrested in Denmark after being recruited to carry out hits in the country.

According to a press release from the Swedish justice ministry, the morning will be spent discussing how to combat the criminal economy and particularly organised crime in ports, with a press release from Finland’s justice ministry adding that the discussion would also touch on the “undue influence on judicial authorities” from organised crime groups.

The day will end with a round table discussion with Ronald S Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, on how anti-Semitism and hate crimes against Jews can be prevented and fought in the Nordic region.

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