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Detention hearing for teen murder suspects

Prosecutors want a Stockholm-area court to have two 16-year-olds suspected in the weekend murder of a teenage girl in Stureby south of the city remanded in custody.

Published: 9 June 2009 16:57 CEST

Public prosecutor Karolina Lindekrantz wants the Södertörns District Court to order the boy held on suspicion of murder and the girl held on suspicions of incitement with an alternative charge of complicity to commit murder.

“The suspicions against them have grown stronger following an interrogation with the 16-year-old boy last night,” Lindekrantz told the TT news agency.

If the court issues a remand order for the two teens, they will be moved from their holding cell in Västberga south of Stockholm to a detention centre in Flemingsberg.

“Assuming women can be held there, otherwise it will be Kronoberg [detention centre],” said Lindekrantz.

The prosecutor admitted that the two 16-year-olds are rather young to be detained.

“Normally you can let suspects this young be taken in custody according to LVU,” said Lindekrantz, refering to the abbreviation used for Sweden’s law on care of young people ( Lagen om vård av unga).

“But in this case that type of solution doesn’t offer sufficient restrictions.”

A group of police from Stockholm’s southern district continue to interview a number of young people who were present near the festival grounds where the badly injured body of the 16-year-old girl was found on Sunday morning.

Lindekrantz said the boy was cooperative during his interrogation but she wouldn’t say whether or not he had confessed.

When asked to confirm reports that the boy claims to be innocent, the suspected 16-year-old’s new attorney, Claes Borgström, refused to comment.

“It could be interpreted that way,” Borgström told TT.

The teenage victim was attending a party near where she was found by two friends shortly before 1am on Sunday morning.

Seriously wounded at the time, the girl was taken to hospital where she later died from her injuries.

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'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast.

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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