It started as a normal day at work.
Half an hour later, they found 18-year-old Marua’s mutilated body in the backhoe.
– You don’t understand. How can people do such a thing? It’s very sad, says Bekim, 37, in the podcast Aftonbladet Krim.
Soon the verdict will come against a 42-year-old man who is suspected of the murder of Marua Ajouz.
Marua Ajouz, 18, disappeared without a trace in Malmö in December 2002.
Almost a year later, her head was found in Bokskogen outside Malmö.
In 2017, Bekim and his colleagues found parts of her body when they were excavating soil in Nordanå.
Now a 42-year-old man is charged, suspected of the murder of Marua. He denies having anything to do with her death.
The trial has ended and the 42-year-old has been released pending the verdict on September 12.
His release may indicate that he will be acquitted, or sentenced to a shorter prison term.
“He had counted five fingers”
For the men who worked at the construction site in Nordanå in 2017, the trial evokes the memory of a strange day at work.
Supervisor Bekim, 37, tells the Aftonbladet Krim podcast that the day’s work had just begun when one of the excavators called.
– I heard in his voice that he was very shaken. He said I really needed to come out and look at what they had found.
When Bekim came out, the two excavators left their machines and stood 100 meters away.
– They were completely white in the face. One showed with his hand that he had counted five fingers.
Bekim walked over and looked in the bucket. He immediately saw what was there.
– You could see that it was a person, a woman.
– You are obviously very affected by something like this happening at work. It is not normal to find a body. You can always find skeletal parts from the past. Lund is typically a place where you often find old bones. But this was something completely different, says Bekim.
Got psychological help after the find
When Bekim’s boss Marcus arrived at the scene, the police were already there.
– The atmosphere was such that you could touch it. There was a very strange feeling in the whole workplace.
The murder of Marua Ajouz has been unsolved for 20 years. Photo: The police
In order to investigate the soil masses, the police needed the help of excavators.
– They wondered if we could help with that. It was a bit difficult to ask for it from the drivers who had done it. We helped them find another driver who could drive the machines we had on site.
Afterwards, the staff gathered and talked. They also received help from a psychologist.
– We had routines for handling crises. But we had no routine for something like this. We had to go by feel, says Marcus.
Bekim and Marcus hope that the family will get answers to what happened to Marua.
– If this that we were involved in can somehow lead to this being cleared up, that is of course very positive.
A strange find
When the police had finished with the investigation, the work team would resume their digging.
But when they got back to the place, they made a strange find at the place where Marua’s body had been found.
A porcelain statuette with a severed head was set up among the masses of earth.
Hear more about the find in the podcast above.