SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

84-year-old killed for ‘not lending grandson her car’

Murder charges have been filed against a 22-year-old Swede suspected of killing his 84-year-old grandmother after she refused to let him borrow her car.

The man, a resident of Borås in western Sweden, is suspected of having stabbed and beaten his grandmother in October of last year before suffocating her to death by rolling her head up in a rug, the local Borås Tidningen (BT) reported.

After allegedly killing his grandmother, the man then took her mobile phone and drove off in her car only to later run off the road.

He then called his mother, who came to pick him up.

The 22-year-old then explained that something terrible had happened to his grandmother.

The man’s mother called the police, who subsequently found the 84-year-old with stab wounds and head trauma. She also had her head tightly wrapped up inside a rug.

The 22-year-old was arrested later that evening and remanded in custody several days later.

Investigators found traces of the 22-year-old’s DNA on the shaft of a knife believed to be used in the deadly attack, as well as blood from the 84-year-old grandmother on the man’s clothes.

While the grandson has admitted he was present at his grandmother’s home, he has yet to provide a full account of what took place, despite several interrogations.

The man was said to have a good relationship with his grandmother, but prosecutors believe the 84-year-old’s refusal to lend her car to her grandson, who was under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time, may have led the 22-year-old to kill her.

“One can only speculate as to why he was so determined to borrow the grandmother’s car. An educated guess could be that drugs may have had something to do with it,” prosecutor Daniel Edsbagge told BT.

In filing the murder charges on Monday, Edsbagge said he believed he had “solid evidence” implicating the 22-year-old in his grandmother’s death.

According to BT, the man had been charged with a number of other crimes earlier in the year, including attempted assault, petty theft, and a number of drug offences.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

Top-ranking Syrian military official to face trial in Sweden

The highest-ranking Syrian military official ever to be tried in Europe was set to face court in Sweden on Monday.

Top-ranking Syrian military official to face trial in Sweden

Sixty-five-year-old former Syrian brigadier general Mohammed Hamo, who lives in Sweden, stands accused of “aiding and abetting” war crimes during Syria’s civil war, which can carry a sentence of life in jail.

The war in Syria between Bashar al-Assad’s regime and armed opposition groups, including the Islamic State, erupted after the government repressed peaceful pro-democracy protests in 2011.

It has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s economy and infrastructure.

According to the charge sheet, Hamo contributed – through “advice and action” – to the Syrian army’s warfare, “which systematically involved indiscriminate attacks on several towns or places in the area in and around the towns of Hama and Homs”.

The charges concern the period of January 1st to July 20th, 2012 and the trial is expected to last until late May.

Prosecutors say that the Syrian army’s “warfare has included widespread air and ground attacks by unknown perpetrators within the Syrian army”.

The prosecution argues that strikes were carried out without distinction – as required by international law – between civilian and military targets.

In his role as a brigadier general and head of an armament division, he allegedly helped with the coordination and supply of arms to units, enabling the carrying out of orders on an “operational level”.

Hamo’s lawyer, Mari Kilman, told AFP that her client denied committing a crime but said she did not wish to comment further ahead of the trial.

Several plaintiffs are due to testify at the trial, including Syrians from the cities in question and a British photographer who was injured during one of the strikes.

‘Complete impunity’

“The attacks in and around Homs and Hama in 2012 resulted in widespread civilian harm and an immense destruction of civilian properties,” Aida Samani, senior legal advisor at rights group Civil Rights Defenders, told AFP.

“The same conduct has been repeated systematically by the Syrian army in other cities across Syria with complete impunity,” she continued.

This trial will be the first in Europe “to address these types of indiscriminate attacks by the Syrian army”, according to Samani, who added that it “will be the first opportunity for victims of the attacks to have their voices heard in an independent court”.

Hamo is the highest-ranking military official to actually go on trial in Europe, but other European countries have also tried to bring charges against even more senior members.

In March, Swiss prosecutors charged Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of president Bashar al-Assad, with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

However, it remains unlikely Rifaat al-Assad – who recently returned to Syria after 37 years in exile – will show up in person for the trial, for which a date has yet to be set.

Swiss law allows for trials in absentia under certain conditions.

Last November, France issued an international arrest warrant for Bashar al-Assad himself, who stands accused of complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes over chemical attacks in 2013.

Three other international warrants were also issued for the arrests of Bashar al-Assad’s brother Maher, the de-facto chief of the Fourth Division – an elite military unit of the Syrian army – and two generals.

In January of 2022, a German court sentenced former Syrian colonel Anwar Raslan to life in jail for crimes against humanity in the first global trial over state-sponsored torture in Syria, which was hailed by victims as a victory for justice.

SHOW COMMENTS