Mild Sentences for Arab Gang Who Forced 15-Year-Old to Dance Naked in Swedish Mall

A court in Sweden has sentenced four migrant males for a brutal humiliation robbery in Karlshamn in which a 15-year-old boy was forced to strip naked and dance inside the city mall before being robbed of his belongings.

The attack, which occurred in May 2023, was filmed by the men and later circulated by them to humiliate the victim further.

In the footage, as cited by the Samnytt news site, the boy was surrounded, beaten, and coerced into removing his clothes. He was then ordered to bend down and kiss the shoes of one of the men while they made sexual remarks about his mother.

The court identified 24-year-old Ahmad Dawood, originally from Iraq, as the ringleader. His defense team presented a diagnosis of mild to moderate intellectual disability in an attempt at mitigation, but Blekinge District Court sentenced him to 18 months in prison, convicting him of assault, unlawful coercion, and robbery.

Two others, 20-year-old Syrian Mohamed Harba and 18-year-old Omar Merzi, whose father is Lebanese, were convicted on the same charges. Harba received a suspended sentence with 180 hours of community service, while Merzi was sentenced to youth service and additionally convicted of unlawful threats. A fourth boy under 18, also of Iraqi origin, was given youth service.

All four hold Swedish citizenship and can therefore not be deported.

“It was scary and uncomfortable,” the teenager told investigators.

The men were caught after the sister of one of the perpetrators saw the video and recognized her sibling. When she confronted him, it led to a violent clash in Karlshamn’s main square, which required police assistance to break up.

The light sentences have fueled criticism over leniency in handling humiliation robberies, a crime that is on the rise across Sweden.

Following a spate of humiliation offenses in the city of Umeå this year, local police chief Anna Oscarsson Larsson spoke out about the issue.

“When we talk about degrading violence, it is linked to other types of crime. It can be everything from unlawful coercion, assault, robbery, harassment, and offensive photography. So, degrading violence in particular is not searchable in the police system,” she said, adding that at least 10 cases of such a nature have been recorded in the Swedish city so far this year.

One such incident occurred earlier this month, involving a 16-year-old Somali boy who stopped an 8-year-old boy while he was out cycling and forced him to strip naked. When questioned, the migrant boy claimed he acted because “he looked like a racist, I think he will vote for the Sweden Democrats when he gets older.”

“Most often, when we have come across this material, we have found it on mobile phones connected to other cases. People like to record this, to spread it, so they can show what they have done. It’s terrible,” added Larsson.