“So? What’s the problem? You’re not allowed to atone your sins, is that what you mean?” the 48-year-old told the AFtonbladet newspaper when confronted with the information.
The site he runs targets mostly foreign-born sex offenders.
An investigative journalism group, Researchgruppen, decided to look closer at the site, which the anti-fascism magazine Expo has called among the nastiest of all websites popular with sympathizers of the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrat party.
The group revealed that the 48-year-old had been jailed for sexually exploiting a minor and had also been convicted of sexually assaulting several children.
The attacks took place when the man babysat and when he worked at a middle-school.
The verdict stated that the victims had suffered anxiety and had to go to therapy for many years after the assaults.
The man is also convicted of possessing child pornography, vandalism, and violent assault. His rap sheet stretches all the way up to 2010.
His colleagues on the site do not have clean slates either.
A 42-year-old associate, who runs the name-and-shame site’s finances, has over half a million kronor in debt. He has previously been convicted of account fraud.
The site’s webmaster, meanwhile, has been convicted of drunk driving.
And one of its most active contributors is known to police for smuggling alcohol into Sweden from Germany.
Part of the site’s “business model”, the journalists revealed, is to take payment from the people whose names and faces appear on the site and want the information removed.
“So what? If that’s what we are up to, that what we’re up to, we do what the hell we want. We’re the ones putting our time and money into this, aren’t we?” the 48-year-old told Aftonbladet.
He did not deny that posts were removed after payment, but neither did he confirm it.
He did say, however, that taking such payment would not qualify as blackmail as the site never actively demanded money from anyone.
The Local/at
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