Inrikes: Last November a Somali immigrant brutally raped a 12-year-old girl in Sundsvall, Sweden. This Wednesday he was found guilty of child rape – but got away with a meagre 180 hours of community service. After Fria Tider reported on the case earlier this week it has stirred a public outcry, but the prosecutor said the verdict did not surprise her. "There is nothing shocking or surprising," she told Fria Tider after the ruling was issued.
On November 10 last year the 18-year-old Somali immigrant, Muhamed, lured 12-year-old Ida to his home in the city of Sundsvall, central Sweden. Muhamed had claimed to be in possession of intimate pictures of the young child and promised he would give them back – if she followed him to his apartment.
But Muhamed did not give Ida any pictures. After having lured her to his home, he simply raped her. The ruling from the district court states that he repeatedly punched her in the face and held his hand over her mouth during the rape. According to the court he also kept repeating the words "black d*ck is expensive" over and over while raping the girl.
After the brutal rape, Ida, according to the court's findings, "bled profusely from her genitalia". She suffered "both physical and psychological" injuries as a result of the abuse.
When Ida told her parents what had happened they turned to the city's social services for help, but the city officials did not file a police report. When interviewed by Fria Tider, Eva Rönnbäck, director of the social services office, said they thought someone else had already reported the crime.
"The information we got was that a police report had already been filed," she explained to Fria Tider's reporter.
"Under normal circumstances we always file a report and we also have a 'Children's House', so we handle this in close cooperation with the police," Rönnbäck continued.
When asked if the social services refrained from filing a police report because of the perpetrator's ethnicity – a black Muslim – she claimed that was not the case.
"No, no, no, absolutely not. We have a child perspective and it doesn't matter where you're from or what origin you have," she said.
A police report was not filed until April this year, which substantially delayed the police investigation.
When interrogated by the police, Muhamed claimed that he and Ida had a "love affair" and that he was not aware that she was underage. According to the court's ruling, however, it was proved beyond reasonable doubt both that he knew how old Ida was and that there had been no consent whatsoever on her part.
Despite the fact that child rape carries a minimum sentence of two years in prison, the court this Wednesday decided to let Muhamed get away with 180 hours of community service with probation, arguing that he was not yet 18 at the time of the crime and had had "some trouble with anxiety as well as sleeping problems".
After Fria Tider reported on the case on Wednesday, thousands of Swedes have expressed their outrage that a child rapist got away with such a mild sentence. But for prosecutor Christina Edlund Nilsson, who had asked the court to send the Somali man to a youth prison, the verdict comes as no surprise.
"There is nothing shocking or surprising," she told Fria Tider when asked about the ruling.
Instead, she said that the verdict was in accordance with Swedish regulations concerning young offenders. Edlund Nilsson also told Fria Tider that she has yet to decide whether she will appeal or not.
"I have yet to decide, there is also a prosecutor in charge of the indictment, a colleague of mine who is responsible for the investigation. But I have no statement to make on that issue today," she said.
(Ida is not the real name of the victim.)
