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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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CRIME

EXPLAINED: What we know about the attack on a Swedish anti-fascist meeting

Several masked men, described by anti-racism magazine Expo as "a group of Nazis" carried out the attack at an event organised by the Left Party and Green Party. Here's what we know so far.

EXPLAINED: What we know about the attack on a Swedish anti-fascist meeting

What happened?

Several masked men burst into a Stockholm theatre on Wednesday night and set off smoke bombs during an anti-fascism event, according to police and participants.

Around 50 people were taking part in the event at the Moment theatre in Gubbängen, a southern suburb of the Swedish capital, organised by the Left Party and the Green Party.

“Three people were taken by ambulance to hospital,” the police said on its website, shortly after the attack.

According to Swedish media, one person was physically assaulted and two had paint sprayed in their faces.

“The Nazis attacked visitors using physical violence, with pepper spray, and vandalised the venue before throwing in some kind of smoke grenade which filled the foyer with smoke,” Expo wrote on its website

The magazine’s head of education Klara Ljungberg was at the event in order to hold a lecture at the invitation of the two political parties.

What was the meeting about?

According to the Left Party’s press officer, the event was “a meeting about growing fascism”. 

Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar described the event to public broadcaster SVT as an “open event, for equality among individuals”.

As well as Ljungberg from Expo, panelists at the event included anti-fascist activist Mathias Wåg, who also writes for Swedish centre-left tabloid Aftonbladet.

“They were determined and went straight for me,” Wåg told Expo just after the attack. “I received a few blows but nothing that caused serious damage.”

“I was invited to be on a panel in order to discuss anti-fascism with representatives from the Left Party and the Green Party,” he told the magazine. “I didn’t know this was going to happen, but there’s obviously a risk when Expo and I are in the same place.”

What has the reaction been like?

All of Sweden’s parties across the political spectrum have denounced the attack, with Dadgostar describing it as a “threat to our democracy” when TT newswire interviewed her at the theatre a few hours after the attack occurred.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, from the conservative Moderates, called the attack “abhorrent”.

The Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals are currently in government with the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats, while the Social Democrats, Left Party, Centre Party and Green Party are in opposition.

“It is appalling news that a meeting hosted by the Left Party has been stormed,” Kristersson told TT. “I have reached out to Nooshi Dadgostar and expressed my deepest support. This type of abhorrent action has no place in our free and open society.”

“Right-wing extremists want to scare us into silence,” Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson wrote on X. “They will never be allowed to succeed.”

“The attack by right-wing extremists at a political meeting is a direct attack on our democracy and freedom of speech,” Green Party co-leader Daniel Helldén wrote on X. “My thoughts are with those who were affected this evening.”

Sweden Democrat party leader Jimmie Åkesson wrote in an email to TT that “political violence is terrible, in all its forms, and does not belong in Sweden.”

“All democratic forces must stand in complete solidarity against all kinds of politically motivated violence,” he continued.

His party has previously admitted to being founded by people from “fascist movement” New Swedish Movement, skinheads, and people with “various types of neo-Nazi contact”.

“It is an attack not only on the Left Party, Green Party and the Expo Foundation, but also on our entire democratic society,” Centre Party leader Muharrem Demirok, who referred to the attackers as “Nazis”, wrote on social media. “Those affected have all my support.”

Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch and Liberal leader Johan Pehrson both referred to the attackers as “anti-democratic forces”.

“It is never acceptable for a political meeting to be stormed by anti-democratic forces,” Busch wrote. “There is no place for this in our society.”

“Anti-democratic forces like this represent a serious threat to our democracy and must be met with society’s hardest iron fist,” Pehrson said.

What about the attackers? Has anyone been arrested?

Not yet. The police had not made any arrests at the time of writing on Thursday morning.

According to TT, police did not want to comment on who could be behind the attack.

It is currently being investigated as a violation of the Flammable and Explosive Goods Act, assault, causing danger to others and disturbing public order.

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