A seven-year-old girl was brought to the hospital with severe genital bleeding in the summer of 2022. The Somali immigrant family claimed it was a bicycle accident, but doctors suspected that the injuries were caused by an attempted genital mutilation. Despite this, the investigation was dropped. It was not until the police wiretapped the family’s apartment and the girl, in a new child interrogation, revealed an incident in a mosque that the investigation was reopened. Now, the girl’s mother, father, and a female friend of the family are facing charges of aggravated assault.
The indictment and preliminary investigation material show that the 34-year-old mother, the 39-year-old father, and a 24-year-old female friend of the family are the ones being charged. All are migrants from Somalia, and only the mother has Swedish citizenship.
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The prosecutor argues that all three participated in cutting the girl’s genitals. The charge for all three is aggravated assault.
The mother is also charged with assaulting another of the couple’s children, who at one point was subjected to multiple blows all over the body, resulting in pain and bruises.
The father is also charged with two counts of assaulting two more of the couple’s children, in one case pushing one to the ground and then kicking them, and in the other case, kicking them causing them to lose balance and fall to the ground. For the latter incident, he is also charged with violating the peace of a child.
The prosecutor has requested that the father and the female friend be deported from the country but allowed to return to Sweden in 15 years. The mother has dual citizenship and therefore cannot be deported.
From alleged bicycle accident to charges of genital mutilation
When the ambulance was called on July 12, 2022, the girl was “bleeding heavily from her genitals”. The mother and present relatives claimed that it was a bicycle accident. However, the forensic doctor concluded that the injuries did not match what one would expect from someone falling off a bike:
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“The appearance of the injuries strongly suggests that they did not result from a fall accident… they indicate that another person cut with a sharp object… consistent with type 4 genital mutilation.”
Suspicions of genital mutilation arose at that time, but for unknown reasons, the investigation stalled. It was closed in 2023 because, according to the prosecutor, there was “insufficient evidence to continue it”.
New information in 2024: The girl talks about the mosque
However, a new police report was made in the summer of 2024. The girl and her sister were heard again in October of the same year. That’s when the girl revealed that she had been “sewn” and believed she had been “drugged”, and that the incident had occurred on a mattress in a mosque on Kungsgatan in Katrineholm, operated by the Katrineholm Islamic Cultural Association (KIKF), which receives taxpayer-funded association support.
This breakthrough led the police to reopen the investigation.
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When the police used covert measures, it was revealed that family members had tried to control what others would say in interrogations. According to the prosecutor, the wiretapped material showed, among other things, that the mother instructed a child to “not say anything” and that they discussed what a witness would say.
According to the prosecutor, a central wiretapped statement from the mother also indicates that the story about the bicycle accident was fabricated.
The suspects’ own words in police interrogations
Mother:
In one of the early interrogations with the mother, she denies the crime and emphasizes:
– I haven’t done anything… accidents can happen to anyone… I would never commit a crime against my children.
In a later interrogation, she says that she has never been involved in anything resembling genital mutilation:
– I have never received any information about circumcision… I love my daughters and don’t want anything to happen to them.
When pressed about her knowledge of Somali genital mutilation, she responds:
– I know it’s very painful… it’s something bad… in Somalia, they are trying to distance themselves from it nowadays.
She then continues to deny the crime throughout the investigation.
Father:
The father is very brief in the interrogations. In several short interrogations with him, it is only noted, “Denies the crime”
When asked if he has anything else to say, he simply responds, “No”.
Friend:
The female friend completely distances herself from the incident and claims she wasn’t even there:
– I can’t answer that… I wasn’t there… I have nothing to do with this.”
She also expresses that genital mutilation is something “not done in Sweden”:
– Genital mutilation… it’s something done a long time ago. I don’t think it’s something done in Sweden. It’s prohibited.
Acted in agreement – heavy evidence
According to the indictment, it is established that the girl was cut in the genitals by the three together and in agreement, sometime between June 1 and July 12, 2022, inside the mosque in Katrineholm. The assault is described as life-threatening, causing severe suffering, and occurring against a defenseless child.
According to the indictment and preliminary investigation that Samnytt has seen, the prosecutor cites extensive evidence.
This includes a forensic medical opinion stating that the injuries are typical of genital mutilation and inconsistent with a bicycle accident, child interrogations where the girl talks about the mosque, a mattress, and being “sewn”, covert measures where the parents are heard discussing what witnesses should say, a site investigation where bloody clothes were missing and fabric pieces were found in the residence, and expert opinions on Somali genital mutilation tradition and so-called type 4 injuries.
The main hearing is expected to last about ten days.