Born in Sweden – sentenced to deportation anyway

Published 24 September 2024 at 08.21

Domestic. A teenager who was born and raised in Sweden must be deported for life after being convicted of murder in Flemingsberg, the Court of Appeal has decided. This despite the fact that he is not considered to have a connection to the country of which he is a citizen.

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– As far as I know, this is the first sentence in Sweden during the here the conditions. That is to say that it is someone who was born and raised in Sweden who is deported, says Court of Appeal Counsel Therese Linderoth to SVT Nyheter.

She hopes that the Supreme Court will hear the case to provide guidance in future similar cases. The deportation decision was made possible because the law on deporting people convicted of crimes was changed.

It was in March 2023 that a man in his 30s was shot to death in an apartment in Flemingsberg. According to the district court, it was a cold-blooded execution, carried out with the man's relatives present nearby – including a minor child.

The crime is connected to the ongoing gang conflict between two phalanxes within the Södertälje network. Several people were put on trial for the murder and sentenced in the district court. One of them was a teenager who was 17 years old at the time of the murder. He received seven years in prison.

What makes the case special is that the Court of Appeal, like the district court, has now decided to deport the teenager after he has served his prison sentence. Despite the fact that he was born and raised in Sweden, he must be sent to a country to which he must have no connection other than his citizenship.

In the Court of Appeal, the person who was convicted by the district court for having shot at the victim admitted that deed. He was seventeen years old at the time of the crime. The Court of Appeal develops the grounds for assessing his penalty and adjusts the sentence down by two months due to the fact that the defendant was detained with restrictions for a long time.

“The Court of Appeal also agrees with the district court's decision to deport the shooter for life, despite that he was born and raised in Sweden, taking into account mainly the seriousness of the crime and the statements about gang crime that have been made in the preparatory work for the new legislation regarding deportation due to crime ten years”, writes Svea Court of Appeal in a press release.

At the same time, the Court of Appeal reduces the sentence for the teenager by two months because he was detained with restrictions for a long time.