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AFGHANISTAN

Three convicted in killing of teen refugee

A 22-year-old man has been sentenced to eleven years in prison for fatally shooting a 16-year-old Afghan asylum seeker in the face at a refugee home in southern Sweden last autumn.

Published: 10 April 2012 13:17 CEST

In addition to the shooter, two other men were also convicted for their role in the murder of the teenage boy, who had come to Sweden as an unaccompanied refugee in April 2011.

A 20-year-old man was sentenced to three years in prison for being an accomplice to manslaughter, while a third man, aged 23, received a four year prison sentence after being convicted on the same charge.

The 16-year-old boy was shot on October 15th, 2011 after he unwittingly found himself in the middle of an altercation involving the three men charged for the crime and another resident at the facility, which housed unaccompanied refugee youth.

According to the indictment, the three men originally came to the refugee home to purchase drugs.

When they couldn’t find their supplier, then became upset and threatening, prompting another resident at the facility to try to get them to leave.

A fight ensued in which one of the men attempted to stab the resident in the neck.

The youngster dodged the blow, however, and ran inside the refugee home to arm himself with a broomstick.

As the 22-year-old then aimed his gun at the other resident holding a broomstick, the 16-year-old happened to walk out into the hall at which point he was shot in the face.

He was taken to hospital, but later died from his injuries.

In court, the three suspects argued that the shooting was unintentional and that the shot fired was merely a warning shot which happened to hit the boy in the face.

The Lund District Court was divided in its ruling, with the lead judge arguing that the 22-year-old should have been convicted of manslaughter as it couldn’t be ruled out that the shot was indeed a warning shot.

“But by firing a shot from a gun in a small corridor toward where there were several people, the 22-year-old must have understood that there was a high risk that someone would be killed by the shot,” the court wrote, according to the local Skånska Dagbladet newspaper.

The court also rejected the shooter’s argument that he was acting in self-defence against several of the residents who were allegedly coming at him with various objects that could be used as weapons.

TT/The Local/dl

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WORK PERMITS

Business leaders: Work permit threshold ‘has no place in Swedish labour model’

Sweden's main business group has attacked a proposal to exempt some jobs from a new minimum salary for work permits, saying it is "unacceptable" political interference in the labour model and risks seriously affecting national competitiveness.

Published: 25 April 2024 17:37 CEST
Updated: 26 April 2024 06:11 CEST
Business leaders: Work permit threshold 'has no place in Swedish labour model'

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise said in its response to the government’s consultation, submitted on Thursday afternoon, that it not only opposed the proposal to raise the minimum salary for a work permit to Sweden’s median salary (currently 34,200 kronor a month), but also opposed plans to exempt some professions from the higher threshold. 

“To place barriers in the way of talent recruitment by bringing in a highly political salary threshold in combination with labour market testing is going to worsen the conditions for Swedish enterprise in both the short and the long term, and risks leading to increased fraud and abuse,” the employer’s group said.   

The group, which represents businesses across most of Sweden’s industries, has been critical of the plans to further raise the salary threshold for work permits from the start, with the organisation’s deputy director general, Karin Johansson, telling The Local this week that more than half of those affected by the higher threshold would be skilled graduate recruits Swedish businesses sorely need.   

But the fact that it has not only rejected the higher salary threshold, but also the proposed system of exemptions, will nonetheless come as a blow to Sweden’s government, and particular the Moderate Party led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, which has long claimed to be the party of business. 

The confederation complained that the model proposed in the conclusions of the government inquiry published in February would give the government and political parties a powerful new role in setting salary conditions, undermining the country’s treasured system of collective bargaining. 

The proposal for the higher salary threshold, was, the confederation argued, “wrong in principle” and did “not belong in the Swedish labour market”. 

“That the state should decide on the minimum salary for certain foreign employees is an unacceptable interference in the Swedish collective bargaining model, where the parties [unions and employers] weigh up various needs and interested in negotiations,” it wrote. 

In addition, the confederation argued that the proposed system where the Sweden Public Employment Service and the Migration Agency draw up a list of exempted jobs, which would then be vetted by the government, signified the return of the old system of labour market testing which was abolished in 2008.

“The government agency-based labour market testing was scrapped because of it ineffectiveness, and because it was unreasonable that government agencies were given influence over company recruitment,” the confederation wrote. 

“The system meant long handling times, arbitrariness, uncertainty for employers and employees, as well as an indirect union veto,” it added. “Nothing suggests it will work better this time.” 

For a start, it said, the Public Employment Service’s list of professions was inexact and outdated, with only 179 professions listed, compared to 430 monitored by Statistics Sweden. This was particularly the case for new skilled roles within industries like battery manufacturing. 

“New professions or smaller professions are not caught up by the classification system, which among other things is going to make it harder to recruit in sectors which are important for the green industrial transition,” the confederation warned. 

Rather than implement the proposals outlined in the inquiry’s conclusions, it concluded, the government should instead begin work on a new national strategy for international recruitment. 

“Sweden instead needs a national strategy aimed at creating better conditions for Swedish businesses to be able to attract, recruit and retain international competence.”

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