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CRIME

Man jailed for raping woman in central Malmö

A man who attacked and raped a woman in Malmö has been jailed and banned from returning to Sweden for a decade, after he was caught in Finland and extradited.

Man jailed for raping woman in central Malmö
The man filmed running across the Bergsgatan street. Photo: Police

The woman reported to police in November last year that the man, whom she had never before met, had approached her shortly after 2am at the Möllevången square in southern Sweden's largest city.

He followed her and kept touching her even though she tried to reject his advances, then raped her.

On Monday, Malmö District Court found a 37-year-old Tunisian man guilty of rape and sentenced him to two and a half years in jail, after which he is to be deported with a ten-year ban on returning to Sweden.

The man was identified with the help of witness statements after police released security camera footage which showed him approaching the woman, and later running from the scene.

But before he could be caught, he fled to Finland where he sought asylum. He was however arrested under a Nordic arrest warrant, and returned to Sweden on January 10th.


Police investigating the morning after the rape. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

The man admitted to the court that he had been involved in sexual acts with the woman, but said that she had participated voluntarily. However, the district court found it had been proven that the woman was raped against her will and that the man had realized this, according to the judgment seen by The Local.

The court said it had been confirmed that the man “performed anal intercourse and inserted his fingers into the plaintiff's vagina. These acts are comparable to sexual intercourse with regard to the seriousness of the violation and should therefore be classified as rape”.

It also ordered him to pay 115,000 kronor ($12,400) in damages to the woman.

Malmö last year saw the lowest number of crimes reported in the city for the past 17 years, with the exception of rape. A total of 234 rapes were reported to the police in the municipality in 2018 according to figures by Sweden's National Council for Crime Prevention, an increase from 207 incidents the year before.

A spate of four reports of outdoor gang rapes in late 2017 in particular grabbed international headlines last year, but two of those cases turned out to be false alarms with one woman fined for lying about the incident.

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CRIME

Illegal Swedish strawberry sales raise billions of kronor for organised crime

Swedish police have carried out raids on strawberry vendors suspected of being linked to gang crime.

Illegal Swedish strawberry sales raise billions of kronor for organised crime

According to Aftonbladet, the raids may be connected to one of Sweden’s most wanted gang leaders, Ismail Abdo, nicknamed Jordgubben (“The Strawberry”).

Police didn’t comment on specific names of gang leaders linked to the raids, but said in a statement that they had “hit a central violent actor by targeting individuals around this person and their business structures”.

Raids were carried out in Bergslagen, as well as the Mitt and Stockholm police regions.

It’s suspected that these sellers had been marketing Belgian strawberries as Swedish and using the revenue to fund serious organised crime. Police also found children under the legal working age and migrants without legal residency permits working at the stalls.

Police believe that illegal strawberry sales turn over billions of kronor every year.

“We’ve carried out multiple actions together with other authorities,” Per Lundbäck, from the Bergslagen policing region, told Swedish news agency TT. “By cutting off the finances off this type of organised crime, we can weaken gangs’ financing and their ability to carry out crimes.”

To avoid buying strawberries linked to crime, Lundbäck recommends paying attention to the company you buy your strawberries from.

“The first thing you can do is look at the number the (mobile phone payment app) Swish payment goes to, to make sure it’s a company number starting with 123, and not a private number,” he said.

Most companies will have their Swish number displayed somewhere on the stand, so you should be able to check this even if you don’t have the app and are paying with card, for example.

He also added that you can pay attention to the age of the person selling the strawberries, describing very young sellers as a “red flag”.

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