Three young Afghan men, aged 18, 19, and 23, have been remanded in custody by the Kristianstad District Court, suspected of rape, assault, and unlawful deprivation of liberty of a woman in her 20s over the weekend. Local newspaper Kristianstadsbladet, reporting on the incident, misleads readers by claiming that the perpetrators are ‘residents of Kristianstad’.

According to legal documents obtained by Samnytt, the crimes were committed in a residence in Kristianstad on the night of Sunday. The three foreign suspected perpetrators of gang rape were arrested around 01:30 the same night, detained early on Sunday morning, and remanded in custody on Monday by the Kristianstad District Court.

– The three detainees are acquainted with each other. I know nothing about their relationship with the woman, says Anja Steiber, press spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service, in a media comment.

Kristianstadsbladet misleads

According to Kristianstadsbladet, reporting on the incident, the three men are ‘residents of Kristianstad municipality’. However, this is not true. All of them are instead residents of Afghanistan.

The 19-year-old and the 23-year-old have previously been convicted of crimes in Sweden, including assault, vandalism, and drug offenses, but have still been allowed to stay in Sweden. This decision became the misfortune of the 20-year-old victim of gang rape on Sunday.

Prosecutor silent

Formally, the Afghan trio is remanded in custody for rape, assault, and unlawful deprivation of liberty. The remand is based on probable cause, which is the higher degree of suspicion used when the prosecutor and the court consider the evidence to be strong.

Prosecutor Magdalena Petersson, handling the case, is currently silent on further details regarding the gang rape

– They are all three remanded in custody. I cannot say much more than that, she tells Kristianstadsbladet.