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CRIME

Man killed Swedish teen girl ‘by mistake’

Murder charges were filed on Monday against a 37-year-old man who claims he accidentally killed a 17-year-old girl from Blekinge in southern Sweden in August last year during a sex act "that went too far."

The man was charged with murder and disturbing the peace of the dead, as well as with child rape in connection with a separate incident from 2007.

The 37-year-old has admitted to causing the death of the Swedish teenager, referred to in the media as Johanna, but denies the murder charge. During his detention, the man was also served on suspicion of child rape.

“He has said himself that he killed Johanna by mistake during a sexual activity that went too far,” police spokesperson Robert Loeffel told the Aftonbladet newspaper.

Deputy chief prosecutor Yvonne Rudinsson said that material found on the man’s and girl’s computers and cell phones proves that the two had a brief love affair that began around Midsummer in 2010.

Johanna, who had dreams of becoming a model, and the man, who presented himself as a photographer, made contact via the internet.

The contents of the man’s computer also provided evidence that he had had contact with a large number of women and that in several cases, he had pretended to represent a fashion company and wanted to take pictures.

The relative of the 37-year-old alerted authorities about the killing at around the time they heard from the Johanna’s mother, who couldn’t reach her daughter after she had gone to meet the man she thought was a representative of a fashion company.

She contacted police after receiving a call from the suspect, who he claimed he had killed a girl, according to Aftonbladet.

Johanna was found dead in a wooded area outside Lindshammar in southeastern Sweden after a major police operation.

Investigators concluded she was strangled to death in the 37-year-old’s apartment and that her body was then dumped in the woods.

The man maintained that Johanna’s death was accidental and occurred in connection with a sex act that went too far.

Loeffel explained that the man had also been charged with disturbing the peace of the dead because he drove Johanna’s dead body to the woods before disposing of it.

The suspicion of child rape involves a girl who was a minor when the man is alleged to have had intercourse with her in Svenljunga in 2007. The information emerged during the the publicity following the murder of Johanna.

The 37-year-old has undergone a so-called Section 7 examination, or a “short examination conducted by a forensic psychiatrist.”

The psychiatrist indicated that there was no reason to suspect that the man suffers from a serious mental disorder.

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POLITICS

Sweden Democrat justice committee chair steps down over hate crime suspicion

The Sweden Democrat head of parliament’s justice policy committee, Richard Jomshof, has stepped down pending an investigation into hate crimes.

Sweden Democrat justice committee chair steps down over hate crime suspicion

Jomshof told news site Kvartal’s podcast that he had been called to questioning on Tuesday next week, where he’s been told he is to be formally informed he is suspected of agitation against an ethnic or national group (hets mot folkggrupp), a hate crime.

Prosecutor Joakim Zander confirmed the news, but declined to comment further.

“I can confirm what Jomshof said. He is to be heard as suspected on reasonable grounds of agitation against an ethnic or national group,” he told the TT newswire.

“Suspected on reasonable grounds” (skäligen misstänkt) is Sweden’s lower degree of suspicion, compared to the stronger “probable cause” (på sannolika skäl misstänkt).

The investigation relates to posts by other accounts which Jomshof republished on the X platform on May 28th.

One depicts a Muslim refugee family who is welcomed in a house which symbolises Europe, only to set the house on fire and exclaim “Islam first”. The other shows a Pakistani refugee who shouts for help and is rescued by a boat which symbolises England. He then attacks the family who helped him with a bat labelled “rape jihad”, according to TT.

Jomshof has stepped down from his position as chair of the justice committee while he’s under investigation.

“I don’t want this to be about my chairmanship of the committee, I don’t want the parties we collaborate with to get these questions again about whether or not they have confidence in me, but I want this to be about the issue at hand,” he said.

“The issue is Islamism, if you may criticise it or not, and that’s about free speech.”

It’s not the first time Jomshof has come under fire for his comments on Islam.

Last year, he called the Prophet Mohammed a “warlord, mass murderer, slave trader and bandit” in another post on X, sparking calls from the opposition for his resignation.

The Social Democrats on Friday urged Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, whose Moderate-led government relies on the Sweden Democrats’ support, not to let Jomshof return to the post as chair of the justice committee.

“The prime minister is to be the prime minister for the people as a whole,” said Ardalan Shekarabi, the Social Democrat deputy chairman of the justice committee, adding that it was “sad” that Jomshof had ever been elected chairman in the first place.

“When his party supports a person with clear extremist opinions, on this post, there’s no doubt that the cohesion of our society is damaged and that the government parties don’t stand up against hate and agitation,” TT quoted Shekarabi as saying.

Liberal party secretary Jakob Olofsgård, whose party is a member of the government but is seen as the coalition party that’s the furthest from the Sweden Democrats, wrote in a comment to TT: “I can say that I think it is reasonable that Richard Jomshof chooses to quit as chairman of the justice committee pending this process.”

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