A Swedish court has sentenced an 18-year-old man to 14 years in prison for shooting dead a Pole in Stockholm last year.
The 39-year-old Pole, Michał Janicki, was shot on April 10, 2024, in the Swedish capital after an exchange of words with a group of youths in an underpass.
The man was killed in front of his 12-year-old son as they were walking to a swimming pool in the city's Skarholmen district.
“This was a complex case in which the court had to decide on a number of issues,” Judge Anders Larsson said on Thursday.
Last year, Andrzej Szejna, a Polish deputy foreign minister, told reporters the victim’s parents had renounced their Polish citizenship in the 1980s. As such, the man was not a Polish citizen so the Polish prosecutor's office had no legal grounds to take part in the proceedings. For this reason, the case was investigated by Swedish prosecutors.
The court found that DNA traces found on the murder weapon, a converted starter pistol, belonged to an 18-year-old man, Mohammed Khalid Mohammed. The accused testified that he had previously only fired warning shots and denied murder, however the judge deemed these explanations “not credible.”
Mohammed was a minor at the time he shot Janicki. In such cases, the maximum penalty under the Swedish Criminal Code is 14 years' imprisonment.
The accused was also found guilty of offences related to illegal possession of weapons, as well as two attempted murders. Mohammed had been known to the police since the age of 13 as he had been a member of a local gang called Falang of Skärholmen.
The murder of the Pole, who had most likely remonstrated with the youths for their behavior, caused uproar in Sweden. A demonstration was organized at the site of the murder as well as a fundraiser for the benefit of the victim’s son.
The man was killed in front of his 12-year-old son as they were walking to a swimming pool in the city's Skarholmen district.
“This was a complex case in which the court had to decide on a number of issues,” Judge Anders Larsson said on Thursday.
Last year, Andrzej Szejna, a Polish deputy foreign minister, told reporters the victim’s parents had renounced their Polish citizenship in the 1980s. As such, the man was not a Polish citizen so the Polish prosecutor's office had no legal grounds to take part in the proceedings. For this reason, the case was investigated by Swedish prosecutors.
The court found that DNA traces found on the murder weapon, a converted starter pistol, belonged to an 18-year-old man, Mohammed Khalid Mohammed. The accused testified that he had previously only fired warning shots and denied murder, however the judge deemed these explanations “not credible.”
Mohammed was a minor at the time he shot Janicki. In such cases, the maximum penalty under the Swedish Criminal Code is 14 years' imprisonment.
The accused was also found guilty of offences related to illegal possession of weapons, as well as two attempted murders. Mohammed had been known to the police since the age of 13 as he had been a member of a local gang called Falang of Skärholmen.
The murder of the Pole, who had most likely remonstrated with the youths for their behavior, caused uproar in Sweden. A demonstration was organized at the site of the murder as well as a fundraiser for the benefit of the victim’s son.
Source: PAP, Polskie Radio
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