Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Swedish woman held captive for nine years

A woman suffering from multiple sclerosis is believed to have been held by a man for several years in a small cabin in south-central Sweden.

Published: 5 September 2008 16:50 CEST
Swedish woman held captive for nine years

The woman, believed to be in her late-fifties was locked away in a 15 sqaure metre cabin located near Eksjö, close to the town of Jönköping.

“We suspect a man of having held a woman captive against her will for several years and to have mistreated her during that time,” Jönköping police spokesperson Johan Frisk told AFP.

Neither the man nor the woman have been identified, but it is believed they had been a couple for some time.

According to Sveriges Television, the man was declared dead in Sweden’s national registry eight years and residents in the area knew him under a completely different identity.

At a remand hearing on Friday afternoon, the 58-year-old man denied any wrong doing through his lawyer Uno Karlsson.

However, the man was nonetheless ordered to remain in custody pending the filing for formal charges.

Police remain tight lipped about the case but a request for a public defender includes information that the woman may have been locked up for as long as nine years, according to the Smålands-Tidningen newspaper.

The newspaper reported that authorities had at first been investigating whether the man had been abusing the woman.

After questioning witnesses last week, police then brought the man in for an interrogation on Wednesday.

Information gathered during the interview lead police to arrest the man and expand their investigation in also included looking into the illegal detainment of the woman.

Police refuse to comment on the woman’s condition, other than saying she is doing fine under the circumstances.

According to the newspaper, the woman is in a hospital, is seriously ill, and weighs only 35 to 40 kilograms.

There are few details on how and why the woman was locked up, other than that she was confined to a 15 square metre cabin.

Despite suspicions that the woman has been held for years, Smålands-Tidningen also uncovered evidence that the woman has been allowed out in public.

The newspaper also spoke with a source who reported having met the pair and is surprised over revelations that the woman may have been the victim of abuse.

According to prosecutor Klas Hellgren, both crimes of which the man is suspected have been committed continuously since 1999 through August of this year.

The Aftonbladet daily meanwhile reported on its website that the couple had long lived on the fringe of society and had moved to the small cabin on a camping ground in 1999.

CRIME

Sweden charges Islamic State woman in landmark trial

Swedish prosecutors said they have brought genocide charges against a woman in the country's first court case over crimes committed by the Islamic State group against the Yazidi minority.

Published: 20 September 2024 07:15 CEST
Sweden charges Islamic State woman in landmark trial

A prosecutor told AFP the 52-year-old woman was accused of keeping Yazidi women and children as slaves at her home in Syria between 2014 and 2016.

She was charged with “genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes” on the grounds that her actions formed part of a broader campaign by the group (IS or Isis) against the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority.

The woman, who is a Swedish citizen, is in jail having already been sentenced by a Swedish court to six years in prison in 2022 for allowing her 12-year-old son to be recruited as a child soldier for Isis.

Senior prosecutor Reena Devgun told AFP that while investigating that case, authorities had received witness reports “that told us that she had kept slaves in Raqqa,” the former stronghold of the Islamic State group in northern Syria, prompting further investigations.

“If you take in Yazidis into your household when you are an Isis member or the wife of an Isis member and treat them this way, I argue that you are participating” in the broader campaign against them, Devgun said.

Devgun said the woman had kept nine people, three women and six children, in her home “as slaves”.

The women and children – who were kept in the house for between 20 days and seven months – were among other things made to perform household tasks.

Devgun said they had also been photographed, which the prosecutor argued “was done with the intention that they would be sold off”.

Evidence had mainly been gathered through witness accounts, from the victims and others that had visited the home at the time.

The crimes, which the woman denies, can carry a life sentence in Sweden.

Stockholm’s District Court said in a statement that the trial was scheduled to start on October 7th and was expected to last two months.

Around 300 Swedes or Swedish residents, a quarter of them women, joined IS in Syria and Iraq, mostly in 2013 and 2014, according to Sweden’s intelligence service Säpo.

SHOW COMMENTS