Juvenile care for teen girlfriend murder

A 16-year-old boy was sentenced on Tuesday to three years juvenile detention for the murder of his girlfriend who was the same age.

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Västerås district court in a ruling in June established that the evidence indicated the boy's guilt but instructed the teenager to undergo a psychological examination in order to assist in sentencing.

The examination showed that the boy does not suffer from any serious psychological disorder.

The boy had denied murder but confessed to the alternate charges of aggravated assault and manslaughter.

The 16-year-old believed in the spring that his girlfriend was pregnant and when she refused to have an abortion he became enraged.

He set up a meeting with the girl in woodland in the Råbyskogen area of Västerås to discuss the pregnancy and the couple fell out during their discussion. The boy claims that he took a stranglehold of the girl and pushed her but does not remember anything else.

According to the court the girl was subjected to aggravated violence and the court argued that the boy displayed indifference to the consequences of his actions. He was deemed to have intended to kill the girl through aggravated force against the girl's throat, head and upper body.

The court found no mitigating circumstances in the case and classified the case as murder. The court has however taken the boy's age into account when passing sentence; had he been a few years older the sentence would have longer, the court said.

The maximum sentence for juvenile detention is four years in Sweden.

The teenager was also convicted of having forced a 13-year-old boy to hand over a computer and for unlawful threats when he warned the boy not to report the theft to the police.

The boy has also been ordered to pay 210,000 kronor ($30,000) in damages to the girl's family.