Two Afghan men allegedly stripped and sexually assaulted a Swedish woman at gunpoint on Sunday – and broadcast the horrific three-hour attack on Facebook Live.
The shocking report from The Local newspaper is the second appalling allegation of Afghan immigrants raping someone in Sweden in just the past three months. Five Afghans were convicted of gang-raping a teenager in October – but were not deported and given just over a year in prison.
The two unidentified men – ages 18 and 20 – implicated in the most recent attack have denied the accusations.
“I have seen stronger evidence in my days,” said Andreas Welin, who represents a third man, who is Swedish, detained on suspicion of not reporting the rape.
A lawyer for one of the accused rapists said his client has an explanation – though he didn’t offer what that was.
“He has given, in my opinion, a perfectly coherent story about what happened,” Christer Soderberg said. “I cannot go into details, but he has told me in a way that is not contradicted by anything else.”
Police intervened after a woman witnessed the Facebook Live stream and called authorities. The woman who was allegedly assaulted was reportedly almost unconscious when cops arrived at her Uppsala apartment.
One person who witnessed the online attack told Sweden’s Expressen he didn’t believe the incident was real: “I first thought it was a poorly orchestrated joke.”