Fury in Sweden after Syrian asylum seeker pushes 91-year-old down stairs after violently mugging her
11 November 2024, 17:02 | Updated: 11 November 2024, 17:11
A Syrian asylum seeker is set to be deported from Sweden after a video showed him pushing a 91-year-old woman down a flight of stairs.
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Karam Kanjo, 26, was captured on CCTV assaulting the elderly woman at Sollentuna station, around eight miles northwest of Stockholm, on August 29 this year.
Footage showed Kanjo grabbing his elderly victim, who is seen struggling, before the pair tumble down the flight of stairs.
A witness to the attack was seen running down the stairs before running away from the incident.
Kanjo, who entered Sweden during Europe's migrant crisis in 2015, is then seen gripping the woman’s necklaces, which caused her severe injuries.
He then calmly walks away and leaves the elderly woman lying on the ground as two female commuters walk down the stairs to assist her.
Man in Sweden seen pushing 91-year-old woman down stairs at station
The elderly woman was reportedly making her way to her husband's grave while according to court documents, the necklaces were gifts she received more than 40 years ago.
When the victim was questioned by police, she said she was petrified by the episode, and said she had never experienced violence like that in her life.
Last Monday, he was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison, and was ordered to be deported back to Syria following his conviction of aggravated robbery, as well as a violation of Sweden's knife laws and a drug offence.
He has also been ordered to pay the elderly woman 93,100 Swedish Krone (£6,649) in damages and will be prohibited from returning to Sweden following his deportation.
A judge said Kanjo's crime was “life-threatening”, given the age of his victim.
The judge said the elderly woman “suffered swelling over her left hip and left arm, bruises on the legs, bruises on the left arm and heavy skin scraped around the neck from the necklaces.”
“The swelling set in, and [caused] pain for several weeks.”
“Even a fall to the ground could have caused fractures that were serious. Now the fall happened carelessly down a flight of stairs.
“It appears to be a lucky coincidence that [the victim] did not suffer very serious injuries in the fall.
Kanjo, a convicted rapist, has committed at least 19 crimes since he entered the country in 2015, including aggravated theft and attempted aggravated theft.
He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for raping a woman in 2021, but was released with nearly a year of his sentence left.
Read more: Over 50 migrants rescued in English Channel, as 'several bodies' also pulled from the sea
Despite Kanjo fighting to overturn the deportation order, Swedish authorities told Attunda district court that his “connection to Sweden is... very weak”.
“According to the Norwegian Correctional Service's investigation, he lives in destructive social conditions without his own accommodation and is unemployed”, the court was told.
Sweden has this year had a “net outflow of immigrants for the first time in decades”, according to Annika Sandlund, the UNHCR representative to the Nordic and Baltic countries.
The country's government, led by the Moderate party and supported by the far-right Sweden Democrats, has increasingly restricted laws regarding asylum seekers.
