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Murder suspect sent 10,000 texts from jail

A 31-year-old man recently convicted of stabbing a man to death used a smuggled mobile phone to send more than 10,000 text messages from inside his cell in a Swedish jail.

Murder suspect sent 10,000 texts from jail

“I have never heard of anything like this, it is startling,” said district prosecutor Anna-Karin von Schoultz.

The 31-year-old was not allowed any contact with the outside so he couldn’t jeopardise the preliminary investigation into a gruesome stabbing that occurred in Växjö last autumn.

Yet during his time in custody the man sent an average of 90 text messages per day. The personnel at the remand facility noticed nothing.

“We received information as early as during the preliminary investigation that the man was able to communicate with the outside world,” von Schoultz told local paper Smålandstidningen.

The police then started mapping the phone traffic and their investigation shows that the man started using the mobile about a month after he was taken into custody.

The calls and texts only subsided when one of the witnesses testified that he had been in contact with the man.

According to Smålandstidningen the man was in regular contact with several key witnesses in the murder investigation and sometimes spoke on the phone for up to an hour.

In order to get to the bottom with the matter the man was transferred to another jail. His cell was searched repeatedly but no phone was found.

However, police were able to see from the mobile phone traffic that he managed to bring the phone with him both to the new holding facility in Jönköping and back again.

The allegations are grave against the two prisons in Växjö and Jönköping.

Joakim Ringek, regional head of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service (Kriminalvården), did not want to comment on the ongoing misconduct investigation.

“But hypothetically speaking it is very serious if a detained individual have been able to communicate with the outside world,” said Ringek.

Since the investigations were initiated the man has undergone body searches and police have repeatedly searched the cells he have been detained in. No phone has so far been found.

The man was convicted to 12 years in prison by Växjö District Court in February but has appealed the verdict.

The case will come up in the Court of Appeal next week. The man remains adamant he is innocent.

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CRIME

IN NUMBERS: Has Sweden’s wave of deadly gang violence peaked?

The number of deadly shootings in Sweden has fallen after hitting a record in 2022, according to the latest annual statistics from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå). But violent killings continued to rise and more women and youths were victims.

IN NUMBERS: Has Sweden's wave of deadly gang violence peaked?

How bad was 2023 for violent homicide in general? 

With 121 violent homicides recorded, 2023 was the worst year for murder in Sweden since 2020, when 124 people were killed in violent attacks, continuing a rising trend seen since 2021. The number of violent killings was up 4 percent on 2022, when 116 people were killed. 

It’s worth pointing out, however, that this is still lower than the 129 people who died of “murder, manslaughter or violent attack” in Sweden back in 1989,  when the population was nearly 20 percent lower. 

The graph below shows how the number of violent homicides in Sweden rose sharply in about 2014, after which it has seen a gradual but unsteady increase.  

Homicides in Sweden between 2013 and 2023. Source: Brå
 
What about deadly shootings?
 
When it comes to the gang shootings that have dominated headlines in Sweden in recent years, there were signs of improvement, with 53 people shot dead in 2023, down from a record 63 in 2022.  
 
It’s hardly great news though, as 2023 still witnessed the second highest number of deadly shootings ever recorded in Sweden. 
 
The number of fatal stabbings also increased slightly in 2023 to 41 from 35 in 2022. 

 

Deadly shootings, stabbings and other forms of violent murder between 2013 and 2023. Source: Brå
 
Tragically, in 2023, gang criminals in Sweden increasingly began to target the relatives and loved ones of their rivals and also to use minors in their gang wars, leading to a spike in the number of women and youths killed. 
 
Ten more women and nine more people under the age of 18 died in violent attacks in 2023 than in 2022, pushing the number of female victims to 33 and the number of youth victims to 17. 
 
“This year more minors and women have been homicide victims compared with the year before,” Jan Lundbeck, a statistician at the council said in a press release. “This is partly a result of conflicts in criminal circles which had had deadly consequences in which people under the ae of 18 and even women have been affected.” 

Ten of the 33 women killed were in a relationship with their killer, the same number as in 2022. 

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