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Judge Lars Holmgård: Decision in the so-called taxi murder
Photo: Henrik Montgomery / TT / IMAGO
A court in Uppsala, Sweden, has convicted five young people of killing a 26-year-old. The oldest defendant, who was already of legal age at the time of the crime, received life imprisonment, the court announced. Two of his underage brothers were each sentenced to four years in juvenile detention. The youngest of the four brothers and his girlfriend are each sentenced to three and a half years in juvenile detention for aiding and abetting.
Judge Lars Holmgård said the case, which became known in the media as the taxi murder, bore the hallmarks of an execution. The girl, who was 15 years old at the time of the crime, had reported a 26-year-old taxi driver for rape a month before the crime.
No doubts about guilt
According to the TT news agency, the 15-year-old lured him to a lonely area at the end of March with the prospect of a rendezvous. There, the man was overpowered by her boyfriend and his three brothers. They forced him to reveal the access codes for his mobile phone and bank card, dragged him into a forest, and hanged him. Subsequently, the man's account was emptied.
The court had no doubts about the guilt of the defendants based on chat conversations, DNA traces and other circumstantial evidence. However, it assumed that the girl and the youngest defendant were no longer at the scene of the murder at the time of the murder.
Regarding the girl's rape allegation, Judge Holmgård said the court had taken note of the testimony. However, this was not the real issue of the trial.
bbr/dpa