Image Credit: Roland Magnusson / Getty 
A 26-year-old taxi driver from Eritrea has been charged with raping a female passenger during a ride in the Swedish city of Östersund last year, but prosecutors face an uphill battle in having his deportation approved.
Prosecutors are seeking both imprisonment and deportation, but the Swedish Migration Board has reportedly refused to allow expulsion, arguing that the man would face “inhumane or degrading treatment” if returned to his home country.
The assault occurred in September 2024 when the woman, who was heavily intoxicated, entered the taxi. During the journey, the driver inserted his fingers into her vagina — an act legally defined as “a sexual act comparable to intercourse” in Sweden. The woman reported the attack soon afterward, prompting a police investigation and rape charges.
The Eritrean, who came to Sweden in 2017 as a dependent relative of his parents, admitted during questioning to inserting his fingers into the woman’s vagina but denied committing rape. The victim told police she was too drunk to consent to any sexual act.
Chief Prosecutor Stefan Ekeroth has requested that the man be deported after serving a prison term. However, Migration Board lawyer Michael Rönndahl disagreed, writing in a statement cited by Samnytt that “he risks being subjected to inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment upon return to Eritrea” because of the country’s forced conscription policy.
“The Migration Board therefore assesses that there are obstacles to enforcing a deportation decision,” Rönndahl added.
The case is one of several recently reported in Sweden involving foreign nationals accused of sexual offenses.
In a separate case, a 44-year-old taxi driver, also from Eritrea, was convicted of sexual assault after propositioning a 17-year-old passenger and commenting on her appearance throughout the ride.
She was returning home from her father’s birthday party when the middle-aged man told her he would like to sleep with her and that she “needed love.” Despite showing no interest, the harassment continued throughout the journey. The court found the teenager’s account credible and sentenced the man to pay an 8,000-krona (€732) fine.
Separately, 16-year-old Meya Åberg from Skellefteå was raped by African migrant Yazied Mohamed while walking home from her job at McDonald’s. Despite being convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, Mohamed will not be deported, with the Court of Appeal for Upper Norrland ruling that the crime was not “extremely serious” enough to justify expulsion.
Four of the five judges on the panel cited the “duration” of the rape in their reasoning, rejecting the prosecutor’s deportation request. One judge, Sammy Lie, dissented, saying Mohamed should have been expelled from Sweden.
“I want to say that I hate him and that he has destroyed me,” Meya told Swedish news outlet Norran, describing how she later suffered panic attacks after repeatedly encountering her attacker around town and eventually stopped attending school.
As an example of what is considered sufficient enough of a crime to justify deportation in Sweden, an Afghan migrant was sentenced to five and a half years in prison and will be expelled from the country after brutally raping a woman who was in Gothenburg to serve as a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding.
In May last year, the intoxicated woman was lured to a park where she was raped by her attacker, who choked her until she lost consciousness before fleeing with her credit card.
Sadly for the victim, the Afghan had already been the subject of a deportation order, having been rejected for asylum on several occasions. However, this order had not been enforced prior to the attack.
