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CRIME

Swedish dad found guilty of murdering daughter

A Swedish man who murdered his nine-year-old daughter and injured her mother at their home in Bålsta north-west of Stockholm in July has been sentenced to psychiatric care.

Published: 25 January 2016 15:17 CET
Swedish dad found guilty of murdering daughter
Flowers left outside the Bålsta home in July. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT

Police and emergency services found the girl and her mother seriously injured when they were called to the house in Bålsta, in Håbo municipality, on the afternoon of July 9th.

They were both taken to Uppsala University Hospital, but the nine-year-old bled to death from stab wounds in her head and chest before doctors were able to save her life.

Her father, the 47-year-old director of a successful IT company, was found guilty of attacking the pair on Monday, after the high-profile trial concluded at Uppsala District Court.

A psychiatric examination had earlier found that he suffered from a serious mental disorder at the time and could therefore not be sentenced to prison.

But the man's lawyer, Thomas Martinsson, had advocated for the court to hand out a not-guilty verdict, saying the man had not intended to kill the nine-year-old.

“My client had the notion that the girl would be saved for eternal life, he was in a psychosis and believed he was in close relation to God and acted with 'positive intent'. It is pedagogically difficult to explain, but he did not act with intent to kill in a criminal sense, and it's important to get the [legal terms] right,” Martinsson told regional newspaper UNT.

The trial sparked debate about psychiatric care in Sweden after it emerged that the man had sought psychological help at Uppsala University Hospital just hours before the attack.

The shocking incident also stirred emotions in the quiet town of Bålsta and flowers were left outside the family home after the girl's death.

Bålsta, in Uppsala County, north-east of Stockholm, is situated near Lake Mälaren. It has just over 14,000 residents.

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.

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