A 38-year-old Swedish father of young children in Stockholm had enough of the criminal gang causing trouble outside his home. Despite being outnumbered, he went out to confront the gang—led by a convicted gangster. Then the police arrived and arrested the 38-year-old father, who has now been convicted of assault and is forced to pay a six-figure sum in damages and legal costs.

The evening of December 27, 2024. A youth gang is terrorizing a residential area in Tyresö, outside Stockholm. They shoot off fireworks and set off bombs.

A gang war is ongoing in Stockholm’s suburbs, especially with bombings targeted at various people within the criminal environment—causing heightened anxiety among residents.

The Father Who’d Had Enough

Many in Tyresö are fed up with the gang’s rampage. A Swedish father of young children who lives in the area—and whose children have been repeatedly woken and frightened by the blasts outside—decides to go out and confront them.

“I had an idea that it was just kids and that I would scold them,” he later explains his reasoning to the police.

The 38-year-old catches up to the gang at a nearby school. He is outnumbered, alone against four of them.

The father’s plan is simple: He wants to take away the gang’s fireworks so he and his family can have some peace. In short, he wants to put his foot down.

The 38-year-old targets the gang member carrying a drawstring gym bag full of fireworks, perceiving him as the gang’s leader.

“I made it clear I just wanted the fireworks,” the father tells the police, referring to the firework items.

But the gang doesn’t give in without a fight. A scuffle ensues, during which the father receives multiple kicks and punches. Despite this, he’s able to grab the gang leader and throw him to the ground.

“I’m going to kill you”

The gang leader wrestled to the ground by the father is named Leon Sedighi and is 16 years old. He has a Swedish-Iranian background and does not appreciate being thrown down in front of his friends.

“You don’t know who you’re f***ing with! I’m going to kill you! I’ll f*** your mom! Your whole family is going to die!” he screams at the 38-year-old.

The fight is captured on camera by the school’s surveillance system.

The 38-year-old manages to grab the gym bag with the fireworks. He then tries to get away, but the gang chases after him, pulling out their phones to call for reinforcements.

The father takes refuge in a basement across from the school, locking himself in a shelter. From there, he manages to call a friend, who in turn contacts the police.

The friend himself drives to the address the father gave, and sees the gang “bouncing around and tugging at doors” trying to get to the father, now being hunted.

It takes time before the police finally arrive.

Arrested by Police

Several police patrols are dispatched to the school and surrounding area. First, the youth gang gets to give their version of events. The teenage boy who was thrown down tells police he was scared when attacked by the father.

“Of course! Terrified! I was afraid I would die. He’s here to kill me,” he tells the police.

As a result, it’s the 38-year-old father who is arrested by police and taken to jail. However, he dismisses the teenager’s claim that he was scared.

The 38-year-old was alone, while the alleged victim had several friends with him. He tries to explain to police that all he wanted was to put an end to the gang’s rampage so his children could sleep peacefully.

“I don’t think the victim is a particularly truthful person. I think the victim and the others are terrorizing our neighborhood. There are also rumors online that he is a criminal individual,” the father tells police.

These are not just malicious rumors.

The Bomb Attack in Upplands Bro

On the night of January 27, 2025—almost exactly one month after the father’s confrontation with the gang outside the school—a so-called thermos bomb detonates outside a window at a residence in Upplands Bro, outside Stockholm.

On the other side of the window, an Eastern European family is sleeping: a mother, father, and their son. The father is injured by glass shards from the explosion and the boy’s entire room is destroyed.

Afterward, the family wonders why they were targeted. The father is a construction worker, well-behaved with no enemies. The motive puzzles investigators, and it’s suspected to be yet another so-called mistaken bombing.

Shortly after the bombing, police arrest Leon Sedighi as he’s taking a taxi away from the crime scene. The very same teenager who had been in a scuffle with the 38-year-old the previous month.

At first, Leon Sedighi claims to have been in Upplands Bro to visit his girlfriend. Later, he admits to planting the bomb, saying he was offered 30,000 kronor to do it.

He doesn’t know why he placed the bomb at that window specifically. To many police questions, he answers that he doesn’t remember or doesn’t know.

Sedighi was sentenced last September to one year and two months of closed youth care for gross public endangerment. He was acquitted on the charge of attempted murder (three instances).

Father on Trial

The 38-year-old father was arrested and detained on suspicion of robbery. He spent two days in jail before a detention hearing was requested on December 30, 2024.

Nacka District Court, however, chose to dismiss prosecutor Sara Khoshaba’s request for detention. Judge Dan Isaksson disagreed with her view that the father had robbed the criminal gang.

“There are not sufficient grounds for detention,” the judge wrote, instead stating that the crimes committed may be assault and theft. The father was released and reunited with his family.

However, robbery suspicions against the 38-year-old persisted, even as the alleged victim was detained for attempted murder in Upplands Bro.

It took until July 2025 for charges to finally be brought. The 38-year-old was charged with assault and theft, with an alternative charge of unlawful dispossession.

The main hearing was initially scheduled for December 4, then rescheduled to February 5 this year—more than thirteen months after the incident.

Forced to Pay Damages to Gang Member

During the trial, the 38-year-old maintained that all he tried to do was get the gang to stop shooting fireworks, so his family could have some peace and his child could sleep. But the confrontation escalated, forcing him, in “self-defense,” to take down Leon Sedighi.

Nacka District Court instead sided with the gang-affiliated 16-year-old. The court found the father “was the one who initiated the attack,” and thus did not have the right to defend himself against pushes or punches.

On February 13, the verdict was handed down against the previously unconvicted 38-year-old father. He was found guilty of unlawful dispossession and assault. The sentence was a conditional sentence plus 100 hours of community service.

He was also ordered to pay 26,550 kronor in damages to the gang enforcer Leon Sedighi, plus interest. He must also pay one thousand kronor to the crime victim fund, and 100,000 kronor in legal costs.

Nacka District Court stated in its decision that the 38-year-old’s “economic circumstances are such that he, in principle, has the ability to pay back the entire cost of his public defender and the victim’s counsel to the state.”

Forced to Pay Extra

It was prosecutor Sara Khoshaba who brought the charges in Nacka District Court, but her colleague Johan Lindén conducted the main hearing.

“I haven’t had time to think and reflect, but at this time I have no plans to appeal; I am satisfied with the verdict,” Johan Lindén told Samnytt.

This is a case that may elicit certain reactions, since the victim is a young man involved in the gang environment, and last fall was convicted of a serious crime. At the same time, the defendant is a father who tried to protect his family. Was that something the prosecution considered as a reason not to press charges in this case?

“I don’t want to comment on anything relating to the personal circumstances of the victim. The evaluation is made based on the objective circumstances and what can be proven in the case.”

So the fact that the victim in this case is someone serving time in juvenile detention for trying to blow up a family, or at least for placing a bomb outside a family’s home, is not something you considered?

“That was not something I considered relevant for the assessment of this act and what happened at this particular time.”

The 38-year-old father does not wish to comment on the verdict against him.

“I’d rather not comment,” he tells Samnytt.

Are you planning to appeal the verdict to the Svea Court of Appeal?

“I feel terribly impolite not answering, but I’ll leave it at that.”

However, the father gave an interview to Dagens Nyheter, which first highlighted the case. In that interview, he says the trial was made more expensive because the victim, 16-year-old Leon Sedighi, is serving his sentence at a juvenile center in southern Sweden. The extra travel for the victim’s counsel is now an extra cost he must pay.

“That’s actually even more insulting than having to pay damages to him,” the 38-year-old says.

The Moderate Party Politician

The judges at Nacka District Court included Judge Magnus Wulkan. Samnytt has tried to reach him without success.

But the panel also consisted of three politically appointed lay judges: Åsa Byström Sandén (Moderate Party), Mats Fält (Moderate Party), and Teija Ek (NL).

Mats Fält, in addition to being a lay judge in Nacka District Court, is a member of both the municipal executive board and city council in Tyresö. He does not want to answer Samnytt’s questions about the verdict against the 38-year-old local resident.

“The rules are such that I am not allowed to comment on how we reasoned,” he tells Samnytt.

The local Moderate politician also does not want to say whether he considered making a dissenting opinion, or how he feels about a father of young children who tried to protect his family from a criminal gang being punished so severely.

“There’s a lot to say about almost everything in life. But I don’t think I should comment at all right now, so as not to put my foot in it and cause trouble. Neither for myself nor for the system,” Mats Fält answers.