Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

AXE

Family members appeal axe attack verdicts

Members of the family convicted for their roles in a shocking axe attack in a village outside of Haparanda in northern Sweden earlier this year have decided to appeal the judgments.

Published: 8 January 2009 07:19 CET

The family has been involved in a roughly 20-year feud with neighbours in the village. Insults as well as stones have been thrown in the dispute, which has also featured several cases of assault.

In November, members of the family were put on trial for attempting to kill a former neighbour with an axe in the spring of 2008.

The 47-year-old man received life threatening injuries in the attack.

On December 12th, the district court in Haparanda sentenced the two sons in the family to six years in prison for acting as accomplices to attempted murder.

Two daughters in the family were sentenced to eight and six months in prison, respectively, for harbouring a known criminal. The 73-year-old father also received a six month prison sentence for the same offence.

All five have now appealed the court’s ruling according to local media reports.

Another son in the family was found by the court to have been involved in the attack, but he is to undergo psychiatric testing before the court decides whether to sentence him to prison or to a mental health facility.

ATTACK

Suspected axe murderer found in Swedish forest

The police have arrested a 37-year-old suspected of killing an elderly dog walker with an axe on Thursday in Arvidsjaur, northern Sweden, after police dogs sniffed him out in an isolated forest cabin.

Published: 30 November 2012 07:42 CET

An 81-year-old Arvidsjaur resident took his dog out walking when he encountered the younger man just a few hundreds yard from his home.

The younger man, who witnesses say had been spotted along the road earlier in the day wearing “odd clothing” and carrying a backpack and what appeared to be a drum, went to attack.

A passing motorist who tried to intervene had his car windshield smashed with the axe before the attacker disappeared into the forest.

His elderly victim died after being brought to hospital. His 82-year-old wife was told of the attack by a neighbour.

The attack has shocked the small community of 4,500 residents.

“This is a small place and everyone known everyone,” father-of-two Peter Rydfjäll, 43, told the Aftonbladet newspaper.

“It feels safe to live here, but it isn’t Bullerbyn any more, and if there is a lone lunatic stalking the village there is little you can do to protect yourself.”

(Editor’s note: Bullerbyn is the idyllic country village in one of Swedish children’s book author Astrid Lindgren books.)

The Local/at

Follow The Local on Twitter

SHOW COMMENTS