The Fatal stabbing of Alexandra Mezher occurred on 25 January 2016. Mezher, a 22-year-old worker at an asylum center, of

Lebanese Christian Christianity in Lebanon has a long and continuous history. Biblical Scriptures purport that Peter and Paul Evangelism, evangelized the Phoenicians, whom they affiliated to the ancient patriarchate of Antioch. The spread of Christianity in L ...

origin, was stabbed by a male

asylum seeker An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country and applies for asylum (i.e., international protection) in that other country. An asylum seeker is an immigrant who has been forcibly displaced and mi ...

at a refuge for

unaccompanied minor An unaccompanied minor (sometimes "unaccompanied child" or "separated child") is a child without the presence of a legal guardian. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child defines unaccompanied minors and unaccompanied children as those "who ...

s in

Mölndal Mölndal () is the seat and administrative centre of Mölndal Municipality, located just south of Gothenburg on the west-coast of Sweden. About 40,000 of the municipality's 60,000 inhabitants live in Mölndal proper. Geography Mölndal is located ...

, Sweden. The attacker, a

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...

n male, was posing as an underage unaccompanied refugee claiming to be 15, but, after the attack, medical examination determined that he was at least 18 years old.

Background

More than 160,000 applications for asylum were accepted in Sweden in 2015; that total included 35,400 unaccompanied minor refugees. The asylum center where the attack took place is located near

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

and was intended for minors between the ages of 14 and 17 who arrived in Sweden as asylum seekers without adult guardians. The center is owned and operated by HVB Living Nordic, which runs four ''HVB-hem'' ("Homes for Care or Living"), of which the Mölndal center is one. Staff at the asylum center had expressed concerns about security to their employer. Mezher herself had expressed worries to her mother about being the guardian for "big powerful guys" aged up to 24. A preliminary investigation on

occupational safety and health Occupational safety and health (OSH), also commonly referred to as occupational health and safety (OHS), occupational health, or occupational safety, is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at wor ...

violations was started in March 2016 but dropped in April 2017. The attack came shortly after National Police Commissioner

Dan Eliasson Dan Tore Eliasson (born 14 August 1961 in Sundsvall) is a Swedish lawyer and civil servant who is currently serving as Director-General of the Division of Crisis Preparedness, a division of the Ministry of Justice. He has previously served as ...

requested 4,100 new staff and police officers to cover the increased demand for security at asylum centers, to carry out deportations, and to protect the country against terrorism.

Killing

The incident started with the suspect attempting to commit suicide with a knife belonging to the asylum center. Mezher, the sole staff member present in the center at the time of the attack, was stabbed at the center and was later taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. The injuries proved fatal. Two fellow residents in the center, which housed eleven youths, helped overpower the attacker. One male resident was also stabbed in the process by the suspect but managed to avoid significant injuries. Police refrained from releasing information about the attacker's identity for about three days, after which they stated that he had identified himself on arrival in Sweden as Youssaf Khaliif Nuur, a migrant from Somalia who claimed to be 15-years-old. On 11 February, the Swedish newspaper '' Göteborgs-Posten'' reported that the

Swedish Migration Agency The Swedish Migration Agency ( sv, Migrationsverket; previous English name: Swedish Migration Board), is a Swedish government agency, established on 1 July 1969. Its task is to evaluate and decide on applications from people who want to seek a tem ...

, in their decision to deny his application for residency, determined that the attacker was 18 or older. According to the

prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...

in the stabbing case, medical examinations indicated that he was an adult. A psychiatric evaluation by the

Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine The Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine ( sv, Rättsmedicinalverket, abbreviated RMV) is a Swedish government agency organized under the Ministry of Justice, responsible for forensic psychiatry, forensic chemistry, forensic medicine and ...

determined that the attacker likely suffered from a

psychological disorder A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

and recommended a more thorough evaluation before the trial. Thomas Westin, station chief with the Stockholm City Police, called the killing "a high-profile crime."

Victim

The victim, Lebanon-born 22-year-old Alexandra Mezher, worked at the center in the months prior to the attack out of a desire to "do good", according to one of her cousins.

Aftermath

Sweden's Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, visited the scene of the attack. He later told

Radio Sweden Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitt ...

that he "believe that there are quite many people in Sweden who feel a lot of concern that there can be more cases of this kind when Sweden receives so many children and youth who come alone o seek asylum" The day after the stabbing, an editorial in ''

Expressen ''Expressen'' (''The Express'') is one of two nationwide evening newspapers in Sweden, the other being '' Aftonbladet''. ''Expressen'' was founded in 1944; its symbol is a wasp and its slogans are "it stings" or "''Expressen'' to your rescue". ...

'' called for the expulsion of migrants who committed crimes. The attack raised concerns about overcrowded conditions in Sweden's asylum centers, the possibility of adult migrants taking advantage of Swedish law to fraudulently register as minors.

Trial

In May 2016, the attacker was charged with murder of Mezher and the attempted murder of another resident at the asylum center. According to the charge sheet, Mezher was stabbed three times before she fled to another room, with one of the wounds severing blood vessels in her thigh causing severe blood loss. The attacker was suicidal at the time and reportedly said he had tried to kill himself at the time of the attack. In August, 2016 he was sentenced to psychiatric care, ordered to pay SEK 300,000 in compensation to Mezher's family. If discharged, he will also be deported and forbidden from returning to Sweden until 2026. After appeal, the

court of appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

upheld the sentence, except extending the deportation until 2031.

References