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A jaw-dropping ruling by a court in Sweden. How in the world can this sexual assault be “invalid” regardless of what gender the assailant thought the intended victim was?
When the 61-year-old man had tried to commit the rape in Örebro, he had no idea that the intended victim was actually a man in women’s clothes, who had been taking hormonal treatment to reach the “right” identity, wrote the paper. After following the woman for some time, the would-be rapist was “brutally violent” in the “attempted rape”, tearing off the victim’s pants and grabbing at the victim’s crotch, according to the paper.
…However, the court has ruled that the 61-year-old had intended to rape a woman, as he had been following her before the attack, making a conscious decision to rape her specifically. The man also referred to his victim as “she” throughout the court case.
As this “woman” was actually a man, his intentions were impossible to commit as the rape could never be completed.
“We believe that he wanted to rape this woman in particular. But as she turned out to be a man, the crime never was actually committed,” said Sjöstedt, adding that the case against rape was “invalid”.
7 Comments
Unbelievable.
HUH??? What planet does the judge live on?
The Swedish courts are weird about sexual assault, which I would only know because of the attention given their behavior around the “charges” against Julian Assange. Not excusing this travesty by any means, but clearly there’s some Scandinavian confusion about what is rape.
I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. The judge recommended that the case should be appealed to a higher court to get guidance on the issue. That means he doesn’t agree with the verdict himself. It seems that the problem is with the law (or how it is commonly interpreted) and not with the judge.
It’s still a weird conclusion, but it’s entirely possible that he was bound by the law. The appeals court may also conclude that he didn’t interpret it correctly. Not knowing what Swedish law says about rape and attempted crimes, it’s hard to say.
As Stevie1 indicated, it is not clear that transphobia is responsible for the acquittal on the rape charge. Many other factors could be at work here: http://my.firedoglake.com/abby1/2012/07/05/comments-on-swedens-recent-acquittal-of-a-cisgender-man-for-the-rape-of-a-trans-woman/.
Also, it should be noted that, despite that acquittal, the defendant was still convicted of assault and faces 4 years in prison on that charge. (See the link at the end of my diary above.)
Does anyone know what assailants in Sweden are given for assault with intent to rape who are stopped by third parties or circumstances? I’ve seen headlines saying that the rape charges were dismissed, but all the texts still discuss assault and attempted rape.
Or, for that matter, whether the Swedish was accurately translated?
If rape is defined by penetration, then this was attempted rape, and most certainly assault, which appears to be what he was convicted of. The sentence seems inexcusably light.
Hey, Swedish reader here. I dont know much about law, but i can say that the assault conviction was for 4 months. not yrs, and about $2500 in damages. Swedish sentencing is generally quite low in time and money, especially in contrast to the US. For 4 yrs, you have to commit more “crimy” crimes, like armed robbery etc, not something so hard-to-prove, he-said she-said, like a mere rape.
We can be a very different country in some respects with both social democrats and a king, but rape-culture is still very prevalent with few ppl going to the police, few ppl getting to trial, few ppl convicted etc etc.