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CRIME

Murder suspects ‘show no emotion’ at farm visit

The two men suspected of a gruesome double murder of an elderly couple on a farm in southwestern Sweden last autumn reportedly showed no emotion during an inspection of the crime scene on Tuesday.

Murder suspects 'show no emotion' at farm visit

The double murder, which took place at a farm in the village of Långared outside of Alingsås, was allegedly the result of a carefully planned robbery aimed at accessing the elderly farmers’ safe.

The area where the couple was murdered has been cordoned off since October and on Tuesday, the two suspected murderers were taken to the scene of the crime to see it with their own eyes, wrote the TT news agency.

The two suspects, aged 34 and 40, were arrested in Poland in mid-November. They were taken to the crime scene from prison and were separately shown around the area, each guarded by two members of security.

Journalists, members of the court, defendants and lawyers were also present and a helicopter constantly circled the area.

According to reports, the two men “showed no emotion” during the visit and were “stony-faced” throughout.

The bodies of 69-year-old dairy farmer Torgny Antby, who was killed by a fatal blow to the head with an iron pipe and his 71-year-old wife Inger were found after they failed to turn up for their afternoon performance with the local choir.

At the scene of the murder, there are still blood stains on the walls, along with arrows that police have drawn to show the direction the blood was spilled.

A pile of gravel is also visible in the area where the murderers tried to cover the pool of blood that came from the farmer’s head after the repeated bashings.

The police showed the location of the safe, as well as where the key was hanging.

They then pointed out how the farmer’s wife was most likely asleep in bed upstairs after Antby had been killed in the stable and explained that the thieves strangled her to death with a force so powerful that it broke her hyoid bone at the base of her throat and damaged her windpipe.

She was found with a pillow taped over her face, according to reports.

After prosecutor Daniel Larson decided there was sufficient evidence in May, the two men were formally charged.

“The evidence includes, among other things, the positioning of mobile phones, shoe prints found at the crime scene and that the same unusual cables used to bind the victims were found with one of the men at his arrest in Poland,” Larson said in a statement at the time.

Larson also filed an alternative charge of accessory to murder, theorizing that the men may not have carried out the actual killings, but were instead involved in their preparation and helping the killers make their getaway.

Other evidence tying the men to the crime scene is some toilet paper which contained human excrement from which police were able to take DNA samples, according to the news agency.

The trial of the two men is expected to start on June 4th and last six days.

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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.

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