Image Credit: bildfokus / Getty 
A 13-year-old boy with a non-Western migration background was arrested in Norrköping on May 11 while carrying a bag containing a loaded pistol, a magazine, and 15 cartridges after traveling from Katrineholm on what prosecutors say was a planned assassination mission to Stockholm.
Prosecutors now want a court to establish the facts, but the boy cannot be found criminally responsible due to his age.
According to reporting by Samnytt and TV4, the boy told police at the scene, “I am here to murder,” and in later questioning said he had been threatened: “I had to… if I don’t do it, they’ll kill my family.”
Prosecutors say the child soldier had been instructed to travel to Stockholm, meet a contact in Hallunda, and then “shoot him, and everyone in the house” in return for a promised payment of 300,000 kronor, around €27,500. The boy told investigators he had been given a train ticket and that he later missed his intended departure and spent a night in an apartment in Norrköping. When police stopped him outside a Co-op store, they found the weapon in a shopping bag.
Because of his age, the 13-year-old cannot be criminally prosecuted under Swedish law, but the prosecutor has filed an evidentiary case asking the court to examine whether he prepared for murder and committed aggravated weapons offenses. The requested hearing will establish whether the facts are proved even though he cannot be sentenced.
An 18-year-old Stockholm resident, identified in the indictment as Antoine Martin Galleguillos, has been charged with preparation for murder, aggravated weapons offenses, and involving a minor in crime. The prosecutor alleges that the 18-year-old, together with others, recruited the 13-year-old, arranged weapons and transport, provided accommodation, and accompanied him on part of the journey. The indictment notes that Galleguillos has an existing criminal record for aggravated drug offenses and related crimes. Galleguillos denies the allegations.
The prosecutor’s case cites multiple lines of evidence, including encrypted chat conversations recovered from seized phones, fingerprints, and DNA matches on the weapon and related items, image and film comparisons, and telephone analyses that show contact chains. According to the indictment, aliases such as “Patheko” and “Hemskt Hehe” appear in chat logs that the prosecutor says are tied to the recruitment of minors for other violent crimes.
Investigators also recovered several mobile phones in the apartment where the 13-year-old slept that had messages from his siblings and mother, who had begged him not to carry out the attack.
Under Swedish law, a person under the age of 15 cannot be convicted, but courts may still examine responsibility in a hearing.
Recruiting child soldiers to carry out attacks has become the modus operandi of criminal gangs in Sweden, a disproportionate number of which involve foreign nationals.
Last month, two 14-year-old boys with a migration background were convicted of a grenade attack on a family villa in Eskilstuna while the family and children were still inside. They were immediately released following the conviction and will not be punished.
“If they were 15, I could have arrested them and maybe remanded them into custody. But now it didn’t work, so they were handed over to social authorities immediately after the deed,” said prosecutor Anton Larsson Forsberg at the time.
In April last year, a Polish father was shot in the head by a gang of youths in front of his 12-year-old son. The man in his 40s and his son were cycling towards the local swimming pool in Skärholmen, southern Stockholm, when they were confronted by the gang, who pulled out the firearm and shot.
Similarly, in October last year, a 16-year-old was arrested, accused of shooting dead a man in his 50s in Malmö — an assassination police believed was a case of mistaken identity.
