Two Swedes convicted for selling illegal porn

Two porn peddlers from northwestern Sweden have been convicted for selling pornographic films with exceedingly violent content.

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The trial of a third man implicated in the case has been delayed.

“It makes you feel sick,” said prosecutor Peter Larsson to the TT news agency when discussing the films, which contained scenes in which women are whipped, and their breasts and genitals are burned with cigarettes or dripping wax.

Police raided three pornography shops in Charlottenberg, a village of 2,000 people in Värmland county near the Norwegian border, in the autumn of 2005.

The shop owners had been the subject of a two-year investigation during which 235 DVDs and videos were confiscated.

Approximately one hundred of the films were returned before the indictment, but the remaining films were considered too risqué for approval by Sweden’s state film censorship agency (Statens Biografbyrå).

All the films were produced in other countries, and many had German titles.

The censorship agency accused the shops of selling pornographic films which depicted violence that violated the country’s censorship regulations.

Under Sweden’s rules on censorship, it is a crime to show or distribute films which include “depictions of sexual violence or coercion, or explicit or protracted scenes of severe violence, unless this is justified in view of the particular circumstances.”

On Wednesday, the Värmland District Court issued its judgments against two of the men implicated in the case.

According to the ruling, the 51-year-old man received a suspended sentence and was fined the equivalent of 120 days' pay for having sold 14 illegal films. Four additional films sold by the man were found not to violate censorship laws.

In addition, an 87-year-old man, who sold one illegal film, was fined the equivalent of 50 days' pay.

A third store owner accused in the case, a 45-year-old man, is charged with distributing around 140 films featuring extremely violent pornography, but his trial has been delayed due to uncertainty about who should be held responsible for the films.

The films also show women being stabbed with needles, receiving electric shocks on their genital region, and having weights clipped to their nipples and genitals.

According to the court, some of the women in the films appear to be drugged.

“It’s hard to watch. It makes you feel sick,” said prosecutor Peter Larsson to the TT news agency.