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CRIME

Six convicted of murder in Swedish honour killing case

Six people have been convicted of murder by a Swedish district court in an honour violence case in which a man was killed after having an affair with a married woman.

Published: 14 July 2017 11:58 CEST
Six convicted of murder in Swedish honour killing case
The victim was found dead on a road south of Sundsvall in 2016. Photo: Mats Andersson/TT

The case involved 23-year-old victim Ramin Sherzaj, who was bundled into a car from a square in Gävle in April of 2016, then later found murdered in Sundsvall. Police were first alerted by a jogger who saw a screaming man being taken into a car by “some guys with hoods”. The man was beaten during the journey then strangled to death.

The murder was an act of revenge due to an affair between Sherzaj and a married woman which started in 2015. The woman separated from her husband then later ended the affair, to which Sherzaj responded by posting a picture of himself kissing her on Facebook and sending friend requests to her and her ex-husband's relatives.

Gävle District Court sentenced five of those convicted including the woman, her ex-husband and two of her relatives to life in prison, while the sixth was sentenced to 14 years in prison due to being under the age of 21 when the crime took place. He has also been given a deportation order and banned from returning to Sweden thereafter.

“The district court has found that these six people together and in agreement used violence to take the victim away in order to deprive him of his life, then assaulted him before taking his life; all in accordance with the charge sheet. They are convicted of murder, wherein kidnapping was involved. They are also sentenced to pay damages to the plaintiffs. Deportation was requested for three of the people. For two of them the deportation application was dismissed, but for the third who was sentenced to 14 years, the application was granted,” a Gävle District Court statement read.

The murder was honour related according to the verdict, seen by The Local, and triggered by the sharing of the photograph.

The court freed two other people from charges of assisting in kidnapping and assisting murder, as well as protecting a criminal.

Around 100 police officers across Sweden worked on the investigation, which was the biggest in the history of Gävle Police Aftonbladet reports, and involved evidence from CCTV cameras, mobile phones, computers and letters.

READ ALSO: 'Honour violence is a crime, there's nothing honourable about it'

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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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