Let’s hope that the current tug toward the left in America ends before we become another Sweden.
An 18-year-old Somali immigrant to that Scandinavian country who violently raped a 12-year-old female has been punished with a mere 180 hours of community service.
According to recently released court documents, translated by The Daily Caller News Foundation, on Nov. 10, 2014, Guled Mohamud, a Somali citizen who now resides in Sundsvall, lured to his home an unidentified girl who had just days before turned 12 years old. He apparently was able to draw her into his apartment by having a friend claim to possess intimate photographs of her.
Once the girl was in his home, Mohamud violently raped the preteen, tearing her jacket off and holding her to the ground while repeatedly striking her face.
He then forced the girl to perform oral sex on him, while repeatedly taunting her sexually. When the girl returned home, she was covered with blood and bruises.
Mohamud tried to claim he had been in a three-month romantic relationship with the girl, and that she had claimed to be 16 years old, and that he therefore had only committed the lesser offense of sexually exploiting a minor (Sweden’s age of consent is 15). The girl denied ever dating Mohamud, and the court dismissed his defense as not credible, finding that he fully understood the girl had not consented and was under 15 years of age. He was convicted June 24.
Even in famously lenient Sweden, the punishment for rape is supposed to be a minimum of two years and a maximum of six (the maximum is bumped up to ten years for aggravated rape). Mohamud, however, will spend no time in prison. Instead, the court used its power to impose non-prison punishments and sentenced him to 180 hours of supervised community service, the equivalent of about 22 days of unpaid work. He will also have to pay his victim damages of about $15,000 for physical and psychological suffering.
The court justified Mohamud’s light punishment by noting that he was 17 years old at the time, had no prior convictions, and had “some trouble with anxiety and sleep problems” for which he took medication. Based on this, the court ruled him fit for community service rather than prison.
While the court’s judgment would almost certainly appall Americans, it was not considered unusual even by Mohamud’s prosecutor, Christina Edlund Nilsson.
“There is nothing shocking or surprising [about this],” Nilsson told the Fria Tider, a Swedish newspaper. She said the ruling reflected precedent for how the country treats juvenile offenders.
Punishments that are shockingly lenient by American standards are a modern Scandinavian tradition. Even Anders Breivik, the Norwegian who butchered 77 people in a bombing and shooting spree in 2011, received a maximum sentence of 21 years, and will be eligible for parole after a mere 10.
This report, by Geoffrey Ingersoll, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
