Salle number 4 of the court in Solna, Sweden. Side by side in their box, the two defendants laugh. They are two boys of 18 and 21, dark hair cut short, small teenage mustaches on their still youthful faces. The president’s angry look does not impress them at all. With each new question, we see them talking to each other, nudging each other, laughing… The public can’t believe it. Are they therefore unaware of what they are risking? Their lawyers told them, that’s for sure, but they don’t seem to care. The situation seems very funny to them. This is obviously not the case for the other two boys, younger, who hold their heads in their hands opposite the large room …
These, Soren and Robin, are the victims. Two 15-year-old blondes, still too shocked to dare to look at their executioners. In this first week of December, for them this trial seems too much of a test. As if to dive back into what they lived was to relive it. And die again. Few, indeed, who dug their own grave, were buried there … and are still there to tell.
At the bend of a copse, two figures emerge
It happened on Thursday July 30th. It is 11 p.m. in Solna, a peaceful little town on the outskirts of Stockholm. It’s summer, the summer holidays. Soren and Robin, two college friends, return home after a night out with friends. They walk quietly along the cycle path, on the edge of the forest. It is there, at the bend of a thicket, that two figures suddenly appear and block their way. Both guys are four or five years older than them. Tracksuit, cap, small mustache and fanny pack around the waist… Two ordinary men. With their look of boys from a good family, Soren and Robin do not lead off.
– Hey, guys, are you looking for weed? launch the guys.
The two teens freeze.
– Uh no, thank you, we don’t need anything, we’re going home, Soren answers with a slight tremor in his voice.
But the question was purely formal. The shocking duo have just found their prey. A first round of punches and kicks fell without warning. A real fist! The schoolchildren find themselves on the ground, sore, panicked … Then a knife springs from a pocket. A revolver from another. The two big ones point the two small ones.
– Come on, go ahead!
Terrorized, Soren and Robin try to escape, but, barely on their feet, they are each stabbed in the thigh. The wound, knowingly inflicted, makes them scream in pain, but already their attackers grab them by the hair and pull them under the cover of the trees. For a one-way ticket to hell.
The wood that borders Solna is unique in that it serves as a cemetery for the city
Shock. A few moments ago, the two little blondes were only carefree teenagers. And now they are in the middle of a horror film. Right after the credits. The wood that borders Solna is unique in that it serves as a cemetery for the city. We are not talking here of well marked paths, as we see in France, but of a succession of small islands of graves, where the moss-covered graves are lost under the foliage. A beautiful place by day. But at night, that’s another story …
Wounded, limping, Soren and Robin sink into the darkness. Once a good distance from the road, the other two corner them against an old gravestone.
– Silver ! Credit card !
The two terrified kids give everything they have without arguing. They even reveal their bank code, without trying to lie. As long as we let them go home. But that’s not what is on the program. Their assailants search them, empty their pockets, throw their cell phones in the woods. Then they order them to get naked. Soren and Robin undress, shaking. Only Robin manages to keep his T-shirt. A very poor bulwark for what will follow …
They find themselves with their hands tied behind their backs with their belts
The two hitters pick up the clothes and tear them into strips to make ties. The two friends find themselves with their hands tied behind their backs with their belts, their socks pushed into their mouths like a gag, a piece of jeans around their eyes to hide their view. Then the guys attach them to each other by the ankle, leg against leg, and force them to sink further into the thickness of the forest.
Soren and Robin see nothing. They only hear the orders of their executioners, who order them to walk. Whenever they stumble on the uneven ground, they are quit with a heavy blow in the ribs. Who the hell are these guys? What are they looking for ? The answer: two sadistic little strikes, with endless criminal records, who just want to “have fun”. The first, of Tunisian origin, is known for thefts and various assaults. The second, a barely naturalized Kurd, accumulates cases of narcotics and arson. Two prime recruits for Sweden! And it is together that they will write the most terrible line of their judicial record.
The rumor of the town has died down now. Soren and Robin are cut off from the world, naked, at the mercy of the night. The two barbarians, who are also sexually deranged, make them put on all fours, then, the blade of the knife stuck under their throats, sodomize them with pieces of wood. From there, everything goes. Lighter or cigarette burns. Rape. Endless tortures… The session lasts for hours and hours. And hours. There is no explanation, no questions, no other goal than to cause pain. Soren and Robin are nothing more than toys in the clutches of the two patients. One of the two has found a shovel, probably behind a grave, and he uses it to knock. A flat shot. A sharp blow. The rusty steel bites the flesh of the two teenagers, streaks their bodies with red wounds. But it’s never enough.
“I was only trying to protect my head when the blows were too strong,” Soren said.
The night passes like this, without pause or relaxation. Until the moment when, in the darkness of the woods, the first birds begin to sing. Dawn is near. The two monsters raise their victims in blood. They undo their blindfolds, their ties. Then, at the threat of their revolver, lead them to a small natural depression, between two islands of graves. They bring them down to the bottom of the hollow, continuing to hold them up. And they throw the shovel at them.
– Dig!
Soren and Robin can only obey. They don’t need captions to understand what they’re doing. That too can be seen in the movies. They are digging their own grave!
Every shovel brings them closer to death
In turn, the two teenagers cleared the loam, knowing that each shovel brought them closer to death. The hole gets bigger. Fifty centimeters. A meter. Then the executioners believe that is enough. It’s big enough, deep enough. Will they now kill them with a bullet in the neck, as in the stories of the Mafia? No. It would be too hasty. It will be a shovel for everyone, on the head. Soren and Robin rock one after the other in the gaping hole. Then, without waiting, the two barbarians undertake to fill in their tomb. A shovelful. And then another. There will be no knockout. Just the horrible agony of suffocation. Buried alive!
At the end of their strength and despair, Soren and Robin shudder under the sheaves of earth which strike their bare skin, their faces, and soon cover them entirely. It’s finish. Before long, they will be reduced to the state of skeletons, among the other skeletons in the cemetery, and their parents will never know what happened to them. Unless…
They could get out before suffocating, pushing themselves out of the tomb
Suddenly the earth stops raining. The two crazy people did not settle the earth. The two teens can still breathe. They hear their assassins discussing, laughing. Then their voices move away. Robin moves his hand, manages to grab that of his comrade. The earth is still loose. They could get out before suffocating, pushing themselves out of the tomb. And they understand that now is the time.
– We had two possible choices, summarizes Robin. Stay buried and die. Or run and die… We chose to run.
Suddenly, the two teenagers stand up from their black earth coffin. Then they leap to their legs, and, before the other two have had time to react, they run straight ahead into the forest. They run without thinking of their wounds or their bones that make them suffer, without worrying about the brambles that slash their legs. They run like mad, without weakening, lungs on fire, to afford what they thought they had lost: life.
The impression of seeing drug addicts arriving in full satanic delirium!
The day has already dawned on Solna when the survivors emerge from the woods, naked, covered in blood and earth, their hair shaggy, their eyes hallucinated… They do not stop, however, continuing to sprint on the asphalt at s ” scratch the soles of the feet, towards the city center. Then they throw themselves on the first passer-by they meet. Seeing them tumble down, the man recoils in fear. He has the impression of seeing drug addicts arrive in full satanic delirium! But, a little closer, he understands that they are kids, in a terrible state. He calls the police.
The first barbarian in the woods will be arrested the same morning, as he crossed a footbridge to reach the city. The second the next day. Game over. It was therefore side by side that the two criminals, prosecuted for attempted murder, rape and acts of barbarism, appeared in early December before the Solna district court. We could have expected them to at least look for excuses, by evoking their miserable life, excessive alcohol or drugs. But not at all ! Obviously very proud of their feats of arms and happy to be together after six months of incarceration, the two accused initially laughed, whispering things in their ears. Then they adopted a unique strategy for the future. To the approximately 500 questions addressed to them by the court, they generally gave only one and the same answer: “No comment”.
– Do you recognize the facts?
– No comment !
– Is that your DNA on that knife?
– No comment !
– You are not tired of always answering “no comment”?
– We are especially tired of being there!
Something to queasy the entire audience, but especially Soren and Robin, present in the room but seriously traumatized. Since their ordeal, the two schoolchildren no longer sleep. They can’t stand the dark anymore. They have started therapy to treat their post-traumatic stress disorder but are still far from being able to resume a normal life. What to move their executioners? Not at all. But enough to snatch a few words from them, finally.
– All that is nothing! simply commented the elder of the two defendants. And, in addition, they will receive a lot of money!
At the time of closing these pages, the sentence of the tribunal has not yet been rendered. But, in front of his jailers, one of the accused would have expressed the anguish of finding himself locked up with rapists. The poor ! Does he really hope someone will pity him? Now it’s up to these two foul little strikes to live in fear. And no doubt for a long time.
An investigation by Axelle Winieux
