On Friday, the Borås District Court announced that the man who was accused of killing two men in his apartment in Ulricehamn last fall would be acquitted.
According to the district court, the man must have acted in an emergency.
Sven-Erik Alhem, legal expert and former chief prosecutor, believes that many people understand the outcome.
– There is a general opinion that it is positive that the legislator is decently disposed towards the person who is attacked, he says.
The reason why the 22-year-old man is acquitted is, according to the district court, that he “could hardly come to his senses” under “the extreme situation he was in” and that “he had no time to consider alternatives or act differently”.
At the same time, it is stated that the now freed man used an unjustifiable amount of violence in connection with the incident. Sven-Erik Alhem says, however, that he understands the man’s actions.
– It is of course a very eerie situation to find yourself at a disadvantage in your own home. That it can then be easy to resort to more violence than is actually possible – that is understandable, he says.
Compare with the Vallåkra fall
He thinks the incident in Ulricehamn is an interesting case, and draws connections to the incident in Vallåkra in 2015 when an elderly man shot two brothers dead on his farm after feeling threatened by them.
– That the 22-year-old is acquitted of the charge of manslaughter is a little different from what happened in the Vallåkra case, where the penalty was, after all, two years in prison.
How come the outcomes were so different?
– You have to bear in mind that it was very much a reduced prison sentence in Vallåkra. But it is clear that they differ. There were several perpetrators in Ulricehamn, as there were also in Vallåkra, but here it was very dramatic.
– You enter the home and there is a commotion that results in the owner of the apartment finding a reason to kill them – even if he had no intention of killing them.
Difficult to say about future judgments
According to Sven-Erik Alhem, it is difficult to say whether the acquittal in the Ulricehamn case may affect legal practice in similar cases in the future.
– It very much depends on who judges, and assesses, the circumstances that exist in a case.
Later on Friday afternoon, prosecutor Martin Svensson announced that he will appeal the verdict to the Court of Appeal. He believes that the 22-year-old used too much violence.