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'No leads' after witness assault

TT/The Local
TT/The Local - [email protected]
'No leads' after witness assault

Police have not yet identified any suspects for the attempted murder of a 24-year-old woman in Västertorp in southern Stockholm on Friday.

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An investigation is currently underway to find the woman's assailants after she was brutally beaten for the second time since testifying at a high profile murder trial.

Despite her status as a protected witness, the woman was assaulted by two men as she was out walking in a public park early on Friday afternoon.

The men kicked her, beat her and attempted to strangle her with a scarf. Before fleeing the scene, they printed the word 'död' (dead) on the her back with a black felt tip pen.

"Physically she's fine but psychologically she is of course not doing so well," said prosecutor Agneta Iborn Lind.

The woman's four-year old daughter witnessed the attack but was so shaken by events that police have not yet been able to question her.

The 24-year-old and her daughter have now been removed to a secret location with round-the-clock police surveillance.

This was the second time that the woman had been subjected to an attack since agreeing to testifying at a murder trial.

A 24-year-old man was sentenced to twelve years in prison in May for the murder of 25-year-old Samir in the Stockholm suburb Mälarhöjden in the early hours of New Year's Day.

The woman had attended the same party as the murder victim. She testified at the trial as a plaintiff after she too was assaulted at the party.

On April 19th, long before the verdict was announced, she was assaulted by two men close to where Samir had been killed.

The woman and her family then pleaded for police to take extensive protective measures to avoid a repeat of the initial attack.

For a period of a few weeks, she and her family were moved to a secret location abroad. But when they returned to Sweden last Tuesday police had downgraded the threat level.

"Police promised my daughter a GPS alarm that she could take around with her but she never got one," said the woman's mother.

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