Lund District Court took the school attack in Eslöv in August last year very seriously - if the perpetrator had been over 21 years old, he would have been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The teenager's plan was to kill a large number of people to reach out with a political message.

Due to his young age, it was instead two and a half years of closed youth care for attempted murder against a teacher, nine cases of serious illegal threats against students and staff at the school and for serious threats against an official.

But when it came to ten more charges of aggravated unlawful threats, he was acquitted.

Seven of these concerned the students who have now appealed.

-They do not feel seen in the criminal justice assessment.

They have experienced great discomfort and a threatening situation, says lawyer Henrik Johnsson who represents them in the trial.

Met his gaze

One of them is a teenage girl who was in an adjacent classroom at the time of the knife attack on the teacher.

She heard the teacher scream and thought to go out and see what happened.

Then she met the perpetrator in combat with a knife in his hand and met his gaze.

She has told that she "froze" and then backed back into the classroom.

She has testified that the 15-year-old clearly came against her, but Lund District Court did not think it was proven.

The court instead concluded that the 15-year-old only passed her with a knife in her hand, which can not be considered an illegal threat.

Scary and threatening

The court reasoned the same about the other students who appealed.

The court did not question that they experienced it as frightening and threatening to be in the vicinity of a masked and armed perpetrator who had just committed a stabbing, but emphasized that more was needed for it to be assessed as an illegal threat.

Lawyer Henrik Johnsson thinks that Lund District Court made an overly narrow and incorrect assessment.

-This young man has entered a school wearing a military uniform and armed to the teeth.

He wore a skeleton mask and helmet and filmed it all.

Everyone perceived it as a school attack.

Since then, he has moved in the direction of these young people, after which they have become terrified, jumped out of windows and fled for their lives - it is clear that they have perceived a threat, he says.

The fifteen-year-old himself admitted that he had exposed his schoolmates to illegal threats, although not grossly, and agreed to pay SEK 10,000 in damages even in cases where he was not convicted.

If the Court of Appeal concludes that the seven students have been subjected to a serious unlawful threat, their plaintiff's counsel demands that the damages be increased to SEK 20,000 per person.