Swedish teenager convicted: Coordinated attempted murders

A 16-year-old Swedish boy was on Thursday sentenced to 16 years in prison by the Copenhagen City Court for his role in two attempted murders and the detonation of a hand grenade in Copenhagen.

The court found it proven that the boy – who was 15 years old at the time of the offences – had a coordinating role in several cases related to the gang environment.

One of the cases concerns a planned murder in July 2024 on Amager, where a then 19-year-old Swedish man, according to the indictment, had been hired to carry out the killing for payment. However, the plan was thwarted when the alleged shooter was arrested by police before the attack.

Later the same month, another 16-year-old Swedish boy was arrested for an attempted murder of a gang member at Blågårds Plads in the Nørrebro district. Shots were fired, but no one was hit. The court found the now-convicted 16-year-old guilty of assisting the perpetrator with, among other things, instructions and logistics.

In both attempted murder cases, he was convicted under the so-called gang clause, which increases the penalty for violent crime committed as part of a gang conflict or actions that may provoke such a conflict.

In addition, the 16-year-old was found guilty in a case in which a hand grenade was detonated in a kiosk on Østerbro on 6 August 2024. However, he was acquitted of attempting to participate in killing anyone in connection with that incident.

“It is an unusually long sentence for such a young person, but in all three cases the court has also concluded that the convicted person had what can be described as a mastermind role. He had direct contact with the perpetrators and in various ways helped, motivated and encouraged them to carry out the shootings and the explosion. He was therefore also one of the people we very much wanted to get hold of,” says special prosecutor Andreas Emil Christensen.

The convicted teenager has appealed the verdict.

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