I don't remember the specifics but the suspect was found guilty in two trials. The third and final instance, the Swedish Supreme Court, did not pick up the case. Looking at the available online sources now, most seem to be the extreme right using the case for their own purposes.
...
The Göteborg Daily is an online paper for the English-speaking population here, but it's not really a reputable news source. They don't have the resources.
Curiously, if you Google the victim's name, all the half-way reliable sources of info are gone. I found those Göteborg Daily articles by googling the convicted man's name (Ephrem Yohannes) instead. Even so, some links to relevant Göteborg Daily articles lead to blank pages. That is, all the usual headers etc were there, but the space where the news article should be is blank. Maybe these are the ones that were tagged with Elin's name as well as (or instead of) Yohannes' name?
I think they found his DNA on her. He also threw away some of her clothes and belongings in a trashcan, which seems like an odd thing to do if you are innocent.
Maybe not quite so odd if the innocent man is drunk, dog-tired, shaken by what he's just witnessed and scared. People seldom do the most sensible thing on the spur of the moment, even at the best of times.
Without trying very hard at all, I can think of a few possible explanations for this. Here's the possibility that really intrigues me:
Considering that message from the victim's mobile phone, it seems that the one really reliable part of Yohannes' account is that he saw two men attacking the victim. At this point in time, it seems like one of those men was in possession of the victim's mobile and was talking to somebody else (Yohannes?) whilst the other one raped the victim.
Now...what if he was telling Yohannes exactly what would be done to him if he didn't take these items and dispose of them? And if he didn't thereafter shut the fuck up about what he'd witnessed? I think that would completely account for Yohannes behaviour thereafter. Even after he'd been arrested, he would surely have been thinking that ten years or so in prison wasn't near so bad as the prospect of becoming their next murder victim.
Regarding the conflicting accounts that Yohannes eventually gave: my impression is that he wasn't telling the full story, not ever. You could regard this as evidence of guilt. Alternatively, you could regard it as evidence that the guy was scared shitless. I think I would be, too, if I were in a position to point the finger at a pair of murderous thugs, but had no concrete evidence against them.
Anyway, that was my theory even before I turned up the next thing:
If you Google "Hjalbo murder" you get even more links. And not only to the case in question. Here's
a brief summary of another interesting case that leapt out at me, when I googled those words:
A 22 year old man has been convicted of the murder of an 18 year old on the way home from a party in Gothenburg last year. He now faces 16 years imprisonment, but still claims he is innocent.
A local court found him guilty of attempted rape, and murder of the 18 year old girl at Christmas time last year. He has also been found guilty of attempting to rape another woman the previous week. The court found that spots of blood on the suspect's clothes linked him to both crimes.
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=3972296Yes, this was in Hjalbo too. I've now looked at numerous reports on this case, and the similarities are astonishing . It just isn't credible that the crimes were committed by two different men acting independently. Nonetheless, two different men were convicted.
In both instances, the forensic evidence consisted of traces of the victim's blood found on the suspect's clothing (in this earlier case, the blood was only on his shoes)
Both suspects were charged with attempted rape and murder , not actual rape
In both incidents, a message from the victim's mobile phone, just a few minutes before her death indicated that the woman was in trouble,
In both incidents, the victim's mobile phone was stolen
Both suspects eventually admitted to being on the scene of the crime and admitted to removing incriminating items from the scene of he crime
Both suspects had criminal records, and both claimed that thereason they hadn't reported the crime was because they feared being convicted of the crime.
Neither suspect actually claimed that they'd been stitched up and forced to incriminate themselves. But if you allow them any credibility at all, it's hard not to reach that conclusion.
Interestingly, this first murderer had savagely beaten the victim about the head with a glass bottle; and had done the same with an earlier victim (who'd survived). Another (unknown) person's DNA had been found on the murder weapon.
A report of the 2nd murder case (Elin) mentioned that numerous tiny fragments of glass were found scattered round the rocks where the body had been concealed
Here's one of the news items I found:
http://www.thelocal.se/20100901/28712I trawled through various other articles , using Google Translate * sigh* on some of them. Obviously , not speaking Swedish is a severe impediment as regards persuing this.
IMO, either these men were either part of a gang, or else entirely innocent, as they both continued to claim.
Btw, I came across a claim (from an unreliable source) that the first murder victim was not Swedish, but an Assyrian immigrant. That might be worth checking.
