Court sentences five teenagers over murder of 26-year-old taxi driver

A Swedish court has sentenced four teenage brothers and a 15-year-old girl over the murder of a 26-year-old taxi driver.

The man had been accused of rape by the 15-year-old girl a month before his murder., according to BBC.

The girl lured the taxi driver to a secluded area under the pretext of a meeting, where he was overpowered, robbed, and hanged by her boyfriend and his brothers in March.

Delivering judgment, President of the Uppsala District Court, Lars Holmgard found that because of the earlier allegations involving the girl he had been lured there with the promise of sexual favours.

He was then overpowered with the help of the four brothers and his body was not found for another week.

The 18-year-old, who was the oldest among them, has been handed a life sentence, while two of his younger brothers have been sentenced to four years each in juvenile detention.

The youngest brother and his girlfriend, both minors at age 15 when the murder occurred, each received three and a half years of juvenile detention for their complicity in the crime.

Although all five teenagers denied involvement, the court convicted them on circumstantial evidence put forward by prosecutors.

Evidence including messages between the teenagers was presented by the prosecution as proof of a murder plot.

On 20 March, four days before the victim disappeared, the girl wrote to a friend, “His brothers are going to meet my rapist.”

One of the brothers wrote, “We should do Friday [the day of the murder],” to which another brother replied, “OK.”

After the murder, one of the brothers used the victim’s mobile phone to transfer money from his bank account.

The girl denied knowing that the brothers intended to kill the man, saying she had only thought they would beat him up.

But Holmgard ruled that the brothers had planned to murder the man at least from the time that they bought the rope found where he died.

“The plan must have been for [the victim] to be hanged from the rope, in our opinion,” he said.