Asylum seeker who raped girl, 14, avoids deportation from Sweden by refusing to take a Covid test

An asylum seeker who gang-raped a 14-year-old girl is avoiding deportation through a legal loophole shared on Facebook.

The Afghan national, 21, is refusing to take a coronavirus test – a requirement to travel to Afghanistan – and Swedish authorities cannot force him to do so.   

Sweden’s Expressen reported that 90 per cent of criminals due to be deported from Sweden refuse to take Covid-19 tests and are therefore allowed to stay in the country.

This includes several individuals convicted of ‘serious sexual crimes against young girls,’ the newspaper reported, adding that information about this loophole was being shared in Facebook groups.  

The man’s 14-year-old victim had absconded from a care home when she was attacked by him and another asylum seeker in September 2019.

The girl knew one of the two young Afghan men and contacted him after running away. The men then took her to an apartment where they plied her with alcohol. 

She fell asleep, awaking to find one of the men raping her. The other man then also raped the girl.

After the incident, she returned to the care home and told staff about the ordeal. 

The men were sentenced for the crime, receiving 1.5 years in prison due to their young age.  

One was able to remain in Sweden after serving his sentence due to the amount of time he had already spent in the country.

The other remains in custody in the Gothenburg area and now faces deportation. He is refusing to take a coronavirus test or get vaccinated.  

His Swedish foster mother said that she is worried about what will happen if her son is forced to return to Afghanistan. 

‘He does not take the test or the vaccine because he does not want to go back. He will be injured if he does,’ she told Expressen, adding that she believed he was innocent of the crime.

‘We have become his family and we want him to be released. It’s tragic. They still have him in prison so they still treat him like a criminal,’ she said. 

The woman told the newspaper that she was aware of the legal loophole around deportations, saying: ‘It is written in different groups on Facebook “do not take the test”‘.     

The Afghan man’s circumstances have echoes of another rape case from 2019, which involved Afghan asylum seekers in western Sweden. 

After being convicted of rape and serving a jail sentence, at least one of the two attackers was able to remain in Sweden for a time after refusing to take a coronavirus test. 

According to his lawyer he has now returned to Afghanistan, Expressen reported.   

The issue has frustrated border police who feel powerless to enforce court-ordered deportations and blame politicians for the legal loophole.

‘It is an extreme paralysis of action from politics, which does not prioritise this,’ a border police agent in western Sweden told Expressen, saying people did not understand the ‘enormous cost’ for society of convicted criminals being allowed to remain in Sweden.

A source described as a ‘police decision-maker’ told the newspaper that the loophole was made more concerning by the limits imposed on how long convicted criminals who have served their sentences can be held awaiting deportation.

‘I have detained my deportation convicts, they are a danger to the public, convicted of serious crimes often more than once. But it is a matter of time how long you can keep them,’ they said. 

‘We are starting to approach the expulsion deadline for some. Then you release them and hope to catch them when the demand has ended. If we exceed a single day, it is unlawful deprivation of liberty and misconduct.’