A Swedish appeals court has overruled the deportation of a migrant who was convicted of raping a child more than 100 times over a three-ye...
A Swedish appeals court has overruled the deportation of a migrant who was convicted of raping a child more than 100 times over a three-year period.
The migrant, a man, was convicted of rape and sexual abuse against a child who was 10 years old at the time of the first act and was sentenced to 12 years in prison, according to a news release from the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The date the sentence was handed down was unavailable.
A district court ruling said the man should be deported; however, the appeals court ruled the case did not meet the requirements to deport the migrant.
The man has lived in Sweden for about 22 years, so the country needed special reasons to expel him. He also has a family, housing and employment in the country.
The country’s attorney general has appealed the appeals court’s ruling and demanded deportation.
“The question that the Public Prosecutor considers to be of interest from the point of view of precedent is how different factors should be weighed against each other when assessing whether there are special reasons when, on the one hand, there is a serious and severely infringing crime with a high penalty value and on the other who have lived in the country for a long time,” the news release read.
A Syrian migrant in Kristinehamn, Sweden, who was arrested in connection with a rape case on Aug. 9 also is unlikely to be deported because he had received Swedish citizenship earlier in the summer, Swedish outlet Nyheter Idag reported.
“This shows why the legislation must be changed so that a significantly longer break is required before anyone can obtain citizenship,” said Charlie Weimers, a member of the populist Sweden Democrats.
“And also why a decision on citizenship should be [provisional] for the first five years.”
Earlier this month, the Göta Court of Appeal overturned the deportation case of an Afghan migrant who had been convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl, Nyheter Idag reported.
The case was overruled because it could not prove the man, who was in his 20s, knew the girl’s age.
The girl said she told the man her age multiple times, but the man believed she was 16. The girl in question also had lied about her age to another boy on a separate occasion.
The age of consent in Sweden is 15.
“The Court of Appeal considers that the evidence in reported circumstances is not sufficient to alone meet the high standard of proof in criminal cases,” the court said.
The minimum sentence for rape of a child is two years in prison, but the court reduced the sentence by six months because of the Afghan man’s young age.
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