A Gothenburg district court has sentenced a 42-year-old Arab man to five years in prison for aggravated rape after finding that he and another man abducted and gang-raped a woman who believed she was being driven home by a taxi.
A second perpetrator has not yet been sentenced and will instead undergo a forensic psychiatric examination, despite the court concluding there is convincing evidence of his guilt.
The attack took place on June 8 last year after the woman, a young mother, left a party in Gothenburg and attempted to get home. While she was waiting at a ride-hailing pickup point sign, two men pulled up alongside her in a black Mercedes with tinted windows and claimed they were taxi drivers. Trusting them, and heavily intoxicated, she got into the vehicle.
In testimony cited in court reporting by Samnytt, the woman said she repeatedly asked the men to confirm they were taking her home. “I was really tired and really drunk. I asked if they were really going to drive me home, and they said yes,” she told investigators. She said she initially believed the ride was legitimate until the car passed the exit to her home.
“At first, it wasn’t a bad atmosphere. I thought I was going home. It wasn’t until they turned off my exit that I started to wonder what we were going to do,” she said.
Instead of taking her home, the men drove via a McDonald’s in Mölndal before continuing toward Näset, south of Gothenburg. During the journey, they exchanged text messages with each other, including the word “Näset,” which the district court later cited as evidence that the route and destination were planned in advance. The men also spoke frequently to each other in a language the woman did not understand.
“The short guy was on me a little, and they were talking to each other in a different language. I think it was Arabic,” the woman said. “They talked to each other a lot that I didn’t understand what they were saying. I interpreted it as them talking about what they were going to do with me. What they were going to use me for.”
The car eventually stopped in a secluded forested area in Askim. According to reporting by Göteborgs-Posten, the woman was confronted with a choice: “Which do you choose, one at a time or both at the same time?”
Unable to escape and fearing for her life, the woman complied. “I agreed to take one at a time,” she later told police.
She told the court that, during the ordeal, she believed there were only three possible outcomes: that she would be killed, that she would be taken to an apartment where more men were waiting, or that she would be raped. She described the assault as “very rough” and said she felt as though the men were filming her, prompting her to turn her face away.
The district court found that the woman was drunk, frightened, and in a particularly vulnerable position, and that the circumstances were both threatening and deeply humiliating. In its judgment, cited by Riks, the court stated: “Because the rape was carried out by two people together and in agreement, in a secluded place after the victim had been under their control for a long time and under circumstances that the victim must have perceived as very threatening and degrading, the rape should be classified as aggravated.”
The 42-year-old man, named by Samnytt as Kuwaiti-born Mohammad Deeb, was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay 370,000 kronor in damages to the victim. He arrived in Sweden back in 2010 and has a prior criminal record that includes convictions for unlawful threats, assault against his ex-wife, and child endangerment, a sentence that was upheld by the Court of Appeal in 2024. He has appealed the rape conviction, and prosecutors have filed a cross-appeal.
The second perpetrator is 28-year-old Walid Zeidan, who is Swedish-born, but his parents came from Lebanon.
Zeidan has not yet been sentenced. The court said there is convincing evidence that he participated in the rape, but ordered a forensic psychiatric examination due to suspicions of a serious mental disorder that could prevent the court from sentencing him to a custodial sentence.
Police linked the 28-year-old to the crime through mobile phone data, forensic evidence, and the vehicle used in the attack. His semen was found on the woman’s clothing. The car was registered to his mother, and a search of the vehicle uncovered condoms, lubricant, wet wipes, vodka, and a handwritten note containing instructions, including phrases such as “Be a person who cannot be owned by a woman.”
When questioned by police, the 28-year-old admitted to having sex with the woman but claimed it was consensual and denied raping her.
The court is expected to decide on his sentence after the psychiatric assessment is completed.
