Juvenile care for Stureby teen killing

The two teenagers found guilty for the death of 15-year-old Therese Johansson Rojo in the Stockholm suburb of Stureby last summer have each been sentenced to 20 months in institutional juvenile care.

• Teens convicted for Stureby murder (9 Sep 09)
• Teen murder suspect rushed to hospital (20 Aug 09)
• Teen murder case opens behind closed doors (19 Aug 09)

In September, Södertörn District Court found the two teens, a 16-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl, guilty of having killed the girl.

The boy was found guilty of murder and the girl of instigation of murder. The court was unable to rule on what punishment the teens would receive at the time, however, instead needing to wait for the completion of a psychiatric evaluation.

The evaluation showed that neither of the youths suffered from a psychiatric disorder, meaning that the resulting punishment would be institutional juvenile care.

The 16-year-old boy killed Johansson Rojo one night in June by hitting her in the head with a club, strangling her, and leaving her for dead. She later died from her injuries.

The boy carried out the killing at the behest of the girl charged in the case after she threatened to break up with the boy unless he killed Johansson Rojo, who had allegedly told several people that she was also in a relationship with the boy.

Attorney Claes Borgström, who defended the 16-year-old boy, argued during Monday’s hearing about what sort of punishment would be suitable for his client.

“The severity of his crime would have earned an adult ten years in prison. That should be the starting point for what sort of punishment my client should have,” he said, according to the TT news agency.

He then detailed a number of mitigating circumstances in making the case for a lesser sentence, concluding that his client should be sentenced to between 18 and 24 months in institutional juvenile care.

According to Borgström, his client had been subjected to psychological abuse by his girlfriend and argued that the court must take that into consideration.

“My client didn’t have the capacity to control his actions. I reject the prosecutor’s motion for four years of juvenile care,” he said

The girl’s attorney, Jan Karlsson, also argued that the punishment shouldn’t be more than two years in a juvenile facility.

He said the case was complicated and argued that it wasn’t possible to say that one of the two teens was more responsible than the other.

“Both were under stress and emotional. It’s hard to say who may have affected who,” said Karlsson.