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CRIME

Convicted killer seeks to adopt teen girl

A Swedish man serving a life prison sentence for murdering a homosexual man has filed a petition to adopt an 18-year-old girl as his daughter.

Published: 14 November 2011 11:00 CET

In April 2002, the 37-year-old man slit the throat of Johan Pettersson, 28, because he was a homosexual.

Pettersson’s body was found two weeks later in a well with his head nearly cut off.

Despite being sentenced to life in prison for the crime, the 37-year-old has since married his high school sweetheart and is now seeking to adopt his wife’s 18-year-old daughter.

“We’ve been together for four years,” the wife told the Aftonbladet newspaper.

“He’s changed a lot. But he and my daughter have come to an agreement about this together.”

In his adoption request, the convicted murderer explains that “I have always been like a father to her” as she has been a part of his life since she was a “little girl”.

“I am now asking the district court to consider my adoption request with all their heart and let me be a father to my daughter,” the man wrote, according to Aftonbladet.

The fact that the 37-year-old is currently serving a prison sentence is never mentioned in the request.

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HEALTH

Swedish opposition proposes ‘rapid tests for ADHD’ to cut gang crime

The Moderate Party in Stockholm has called for children in so called "vulnerable areas" to be given rapid tests for ADHD to increase treatment and cut gang crime.

Published: 12 August 2022 14:07 CEST
Swedish opposition proposes 'rapid tests for ADHD' to cut gang crime

In a press release, the party proposed that treating more children in troubled city areas would help prevent gang crime, given that “people with ADHD diagnoses are “significantly over-represented in the country’s jails”. 

The idea is that children in so-called “vulnerable areas”, which in Sweden normally have a high majority of first and second-generation generation immigrants, will be given “simpler, voluntary tests”, which would screen for ADHD, with those suspected of having the neuropsychiatric disorder then put forward for proper evaluations to be given by a child psychiatrist. 

“The quicker you can put in place measures, the better the outcomes,” says Irene Svenonius, the party’s leader in the municipality, of ADHD treatment, claiming that children in Sweden with an immigrant background were less likely to be medicated for ADHD than other children in Sweden. 

In the press release, the party said that there were “significant differences in the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD within Stockholm country”, with Swedish-born children receiving diagnosis and treatment to a higher extent, and with ADHD “with the greatest probability” underdiagnosed in vulnerable areas. 

At a press conference, the party’s justice spokesman Johan Forsell, said that identifying children with ADHD in this areas would help fight gang crime. 

“We need to find these children, and that is going to help prevent crime,” he said. 

Sweden’s climate minister Annika Strandhäll accused the Moderates of wanting to “medicate away criminality”. 

Lotta Häyrynen, editor of the trade union-backed comment site Nya Mitten, pointed out that the Moderates’s claim to want to help children with neuropsychiatric diagnoses in vulnerable areas would be more credible if they had not closed down seven child and youth psychiatry units. 

The Moderate Party MP and debater Hanif Bali complained about the opposition from left-wing commentators and politicians.

“My spontaneous guess would have been that the Left would have thought it was enormously unjust that three times so many immigrant children are not getting a diagnosis or treatment compared to pure-Swedish children,” he said. “Their hate for the Right is stronger than their care for the children. 

Swedish vocab: brottsförebyggande – preventative of crime 

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