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CRIME

Life in jail for Swede who murdered and mutilated victim

A 37-year-old has been sentenced to life imprisonment for murder after he stabbed a man to death and mutilated him in southern Swedish city Kalmar.

Published: 2 September 2016 16:55 CEST
Life in jail for Swede who murdered and mutilated victim
Kalmar District Court sentenced the offender on Friday. Photo: Mikael Fritzon/TT

Martin Olsson met the victim at a bar on November 6th last year. Along with his girlfriend and another man, he was invited to the victim’s apartment for an after party. An argument broke out in the kitchen soon after arriving.

Olsson punched the 53-year-old repeatedly before moving to the bathroom, where he attacked him with a knife, stabbing and cutting him 22 times.

Neighbours raised the alarm after hearing noise from the building. When officers arrived at the scene the attacker’s girlfriend attempted to stop them from entering by claiming that the blood was part of a Halloween party.

The victim’s dead body was found in the bathroom, and his genitals had been cut off.

Olsson has previously been convicted of several other serious violent crimes, and had recently been released on parole when the November attack occurred.

He denied his involvement in the crime, but his DNA was found on five different knives in the apartment, with the same blades containing no traces of DNA from the other two individuals who were invited back to the home.

The victim’s blood was also detected on both Olsson’s body and clothing, and the offender had several injuries which suggested a struggle had taken place.

And on Friday, Kalmar District Court sentenced him to life imprisonment for murder, writing that the event was characterized by a “particular ruthlessness, brutality and barbarism” in their judgment.

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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.

Published: 13 September 2024 13:33 CEST
Updated: 13 September 2024 14:38 CEST
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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