A former employee of an LGBT association in Stockholm has been convicted of raping and sexually abusing multiple asylum seekers who had come to him for help.
The man in his 50s was sentenced to four years in prison for five separate counts of rape and two counts of sexual assault for incidents involving four asylum seekers aged 26 to 28. The assaults took place when he worked for the National Association for the Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex People (RFSL) in Stockholm in 2019.
According to a report from Sweden’s public television broadcaster SVT, the court heard the victims testify that they were forced to engage in sexual acts with the man in exchange for him helping them remain in the country.
The Stockholm District Court convicted the man and announced on Wednesday morning that he would be imprisoned for four years and must pay damages to the victims.
The case may not be the last for the sex offender, as six other victims came forward in March to claim similar experiences of sexual abuse after the announcement of the initial charges were brought against him.
All of the new accusers are said to be over the age of 18, and their alleged assaults took place both before and after the incidents for which the man has now been convicted occurred.
The case is not the first case of its kind to involve members of Stockholm’s activist community. In 2017, a senior member of Stockholm Pride, which organises the annual gay pride parade in the city, was found to have been convicted for sexually abusing a 13-year-old in 2011. The man was forced out of the organisation after the revelation.
Another Swedish gay pride activist, who was not named, was reportedly one of the over 100 men who contacted who they thought was a 14-year-old boy on the gay hookup app Grindr.
The “boy” was actuality two undercover Swedish journalists who later confronted the Pride Movement head over the sexually explicit messages he had allegedly sent them.