Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Six convicted of murder in Swedish honour killing case

Six people have been convicted of murder by a Swedish district court in an honour violence case in which a man was killed after having an affair with a married woman.

Published: 14 July 2017 11:58 CEST
Six convicted of murder in Swedish honour killing case
The victim was found dead on a road south of Sundsvall in 2016. Photo: Mats Andersson/TT

The case involved 23-year-old victim Ramin Sherzaj, who was bundled into a car from a square in Gävle in April of 2016, then later found murdered in Sundsvall. Police were first alerted by a jogger who saw a screaming man being taken into a car by “some guys with hoods”. The man was beaten during the journey then strangled to death.

The murder was an act of revenge due to an affair between Sherzaj and a married woman which started in 2015. The woman separated from her husband then later ended the affair, to which Sherzaj responded by posting a picture of himself kissing her on Facebook and sending friend requests to her and her ex-husband's relatives.

Gävle District Court sentenced five of those convicted including the woman, her ex-husband and two of her relatives to life in prison, while the sixth was sentenced to 14 years in prison due to being under the age of 21 when the crime took place. He has also been given a deportation order and banned from returning to Sweden thereafter.

“The district court has found that these six people together and in agreement used violence to take the victim away in order to deprive him of his life, then assaulted him before taking his life; all in accordance with the charge sheet. They are convicted of murder, wherein kidnapping was involved. They are also sentenced to pay damages to the plaintiffs. Deportation was requested for three of the people. For two of them the deportation application was dismissed, but for the third who was sentenced to 14 years, the application was granted,” a Gävle District Court statement read.

The murder was honour related according to the verdict, seen by The Local, and triggered by the sharing of the photograph.

The court freed two other people from charges of assisting in kidnapping and assisting murder, as well as protecting a criminal.

Around 100 police officers across Sweden worked on the investigation, which was the biggest in the history of Gävle Police Aftonbladet reports, and involved evidence from CCTV cameras, mobile phones, computers and letters.

READ ALSO: 'Honour violence is a crime, there's nothing honourable about it'

RUSSIA AND SWEDEN

Swedish rail derailments could be linked to ‘Russian-backed sabotage’

European intelligence services are warning that Russia is plotting violent acts of sabotage in their countries in a concerted effort to destabilise the continent, including covert bombings, arson and attacks on infrastructure, the UK newspaper the Financial Times (FT) has claimed.

Published: 6 May 2024 14:12 CEST
Swedish rail derailments could be linked to 'Russian-backed sabotage'

The report comes just days after prosecutors arrested two German-Russian men on suspicion of spying for Russia and planning attacks in Germany to undermine military support for Ukraine. There have been similar alleged incidents in several other European countries.

FT also claims that security services in Sweden suspect that a series of recent railway derailments may be acts of state-backed sabotage. 

It doesn’t mention any specific incidents, but late last year, a fully-loaded freight train derailed on the Malmbanan near Vassijaure in northern Sweden, damaging around 15 kilometres of the line.

Repairs began quickly, but state-owned Swedish mining company LKAB, which uses the line to transport iron ore was greatly affected, with losses of around 100 million kronor per day while the line was closed and a 3.8 million drop in operating profits for the last quarter of 2024.

It reopened on February 20th, but just five days later it derailed again in Vassijaure, this time along a shorter stretch.

Fredrik Hultgren-Friberg, press spokesperson at the Swedish Security Services (Säpo), reiterated to Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) what’s previously been said, that Säpo is collaborating with police on the Malmbanan investigation.

“Säpo has an ongoing, routine collaboration with the police force on a number of cases, primarily when it cannot be ruled out that a foreign power is involved. One of those collaborations is on the investigation around Malmbanan,” he said.

Hultgren-Friberg declined to comment on the FT’s reports that Russia is planning attacks on European infrastructure.

“What I can confirm is that Russia is the largest single threat to Sweden,” he told SvD. “We’ve said that for a while. What we can see is more aggressive, risky behaviour from Russia in their illegal actions and spying in Sweden.”

Swedish police and Säpo have previously confirmed that they are investigating the Malmbanan incidents as possible sabotage, which doesn’t automatically mean that they actively suspect sabotage, but is also a routine procedure to facilitate the probe.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told Swedish news agency TT that the reports in FT did not come as a surprise to him.

“Russia is prepared to go further and carry out operations and sabotage on other countries’ territory,” he said.

But when asked whether such acts of sabotage had taken place in Sweden, he said that wasn’t the case.

“We haven’t seen any such signs for now, but we are on our toes. Other countries have seen things where they know or believe that there are such connections,” Kristersson said.

In late April, LKAB said it was so badly affected by the derailments that it may need to close temporarily as it’s not able to get stock to customers quickly enough, so its warehouses are nearing capacity.

“It’s a real worry,” LKAB’s CEO Jan Moström told TT. “If we can’t lower our stock then we’re going to have to start dialling down production capacity.” 

Moström believes that this could affect up to 600 people – half being LKAB employees and the other half being independent contractors.

SHOW COMMENTS