Stockholm rapper convicted over involvement in kidnapping plot
Award-winning artist Yasin Mahamoud was sentenced to prison for his role in a plan to abduct a rival. The conviction is part of a larger trial against a criminal network.
Stockholm rapper convicted over involvement in kidnapping plot
Award-winning hip-hop artist Yasin Mahamoud, 23, has been sentenced by the district court to ten months' imprisonment for his role in a plan to abduct another artist. The verdict was announced on Wednesday and forms part of a significantly larger trial against a criminal network operating in Stockholm.
Information from BBC shows that Mahamoud was convicted of attempting to lure the victim to a studio in March last year. The plan itself was not carried out at that time, but the victim was apprehended later that same spring – then without Mahamoud's involvement – and subjected to assault and robbery.
In total, 27 individuals were convicted in the extensive case for serious crimes including attempted murder, extortion and robbery. The total sentences amounted to 147 years' imprisonment. The longest sentence was given to the network's leader, 33-year-old Chihab Lamouri, who is to serve 17 years and ten months behind bars. According to information provided to SVT, Lamouri had organisational responsibility for the kidnapping plot, in which Yasin functioned as bait to lure the victim to the location.
The prosecution also highlighted a further plot that was carried out in April. On that occasion, another well-known rapper, Haval Khalil, is said to have lured the victim to a flat. Once there, the person is said to have been tied up, assaulted and photographed in degrading circumstances. The photographs were published on social media weeks later after the victim refused to pay money.
The trial was built largely on conversations conducted via the encrypted platform Encrochat.
Khalil was sentenced to two and a half years' imprisonment for aiding and abetting kidnapping, which he has denied. Mahamoud also denies the charges and his defence counsel has announced that the verdict will be appealed.
Since his breakthrough in the mid-2010s, Yasin has released several successful albums and won awards in March this year for artist of the year and hip-hop/R&B artist of the year at P3 Guld. He was unable to receive the awards in person because he was in detention awaiting trial.
Source: BBC