Woman was going to a wedding – strangled and raped in a park

The woman was supposed to be a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding the next day.

But she couldn’t find her hotel, and a man offered to walk her there.

Instead, he took her to a park where he choked her to death and raped her.

When it was over, he took her credit card and left.

She was in Gothenburg to attend her sister’s wedding in May last year. The night before, she went to a bar. She said she got drunk and couldn’t find her hotel.

A man offered to walk her to the hotel. She remembers they went to a park area and sat on a hill.

Surveillance images show how he followed her from Gustav Adolfs Torg and how they then entered the park by the German Church.

There he pulled down his pants, and she froze when she realized there was no one nearby who could help her, she said in questioning. She walked backwards, fell and landed with her back in the gravel.

He raped her, bit her and choked her so that she couldn’t breathe and her vision went black.

Afterwards, he started searching through her things. She asked him not to take her ID card to the agency where she works. He left it but instead took her credit card and left.

Went to the wedding – covered bruises with makeup

When she had put her clothes back on, she called her girlfriend and then an Uber to the hotel and on to the gynecological emergency room.

She then had an hour to get ready for the wedding and had to cover her bruises and wounds with makeup. She was a bridesmaid and was present during the wedding ceremony itself but then left.

The rape led to her being diagnosed with panic disorder, which affected her work. She also contracted an STD. Her relationship with her girlfriend ended.

The man has denied any wrongdoing and claimed that they had consensual sex in the park.

However, the district court notes that the woman’s story is supported by other evidence. In photos from the medical certificate, she had visible injuries to her neck – which were not there when she was captured by a surveillance camera at a tram stop before the incident.

In another surveillance video after the incident, the man is seen trying to make a card purchase in a store without success, which is consistent with the woman’s then-girlfriend’s statement that they blocked her accounts.

Convicted of aggravated rape – deported for life

The forensic toxicology report states that the woman had a blood alcohol level of 2.7 per mille. Her intoxication could not have escaped the man, who thus took advantage of her vulnerable situation, the district court states.

According to the court, the strangulation constituted “violence of a particularly dangerous nature”, and the rape is therefore considered aggravated.

The 25-year-old man is also convicted of having groped another woman while filming her while she was sleeping, which is classified as sexual assault and offensive photography. The sentence is five and a half years in prison.

The man is a citizen of Afghanistan. He came to Sweden alone and applied for asylum for the first time in 2015. He was rejected but later received a residence permit under the High School Act. He then applied for asylum again. The Migration Board said no and decided on deportation, which was confirmed by the court but has not become legally binding.

The prosecutor has requested that he also be deported because of the crime. The District Court notes that he is convicted of a very serious crime, that he has not established himself in Sweden for ten years and that he has no family here. He is deported and prohibited from returning.