The men are between 17 and 31 years old and linked to the citizen guard "Pedo hunting Sweden".
One evening in May last year, they arranged a meeting with the victim via a dating app to Resecentrum in Örnsköldsvik. There, he was assaulted and received punches and kicks. The assault continued when he was lying down.
The assault was filmed by the group, and the film has since been spread via Instagram, Tiktok, and Telegram.
Filmed in shower room
Ångermanlands district court convicts all five defendants. Four are sentenced to multi-year prison sentences, while one of them receives a juvenile sentence since he was 16 years old when the crimes were committed.
One of them, a 22-year-old man who receives three years and three months in prison, is also convicted of child pornography and offensive photography. This is because he secretly filmed girls in a locker room and shower room at a school in the municipality where he worked as a craftsman.
Three of the men are convicted of sabotage against emergency services after attacking a police car in the spring.
The court notes that actions from citizen guards not only affect the affected persons but also constitute "serious attacks on the rule of law".
Russian Nazi
The network "Pedo hunting Sweden" emerged in 2023 and is now present in many Swedish cities. The group's activity involves luring out, assaulting, and exposing alleged pedophiles on social media. The activities have resulted in several assault convictions in recent years. Several of the network's members are also active in Nazi activist clubs, according to the newspaper Expo.
Groups of organized pedophile hunters exist in several countries, often with links to right-wing extremist circles. In addition to alleged pedophiles, Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, and trans people can also be targets.
The inspiration comes, according to Expo, from the Russian Nazi Maksim "Tesak" Martsinkevitj, who until his death in 2020 was a pioneer in filming and spreading violent acts against "pedophiles".
