A Syrian asylum seeker is set to be deported from Sweden after a shocking video showed him pushing a 91-year-old woman down a flight of stairs in an attack that is set to reignite the country’s debate over migration.
Karam Kanjo, 26, was caught on CCTV assaulting the elderly victim as she made her way to her husband’s grave on August 29 this year.
Footage showed Kanjo – who entered Sweden during Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015 and was on parole after raping another woman – grabbing his elderly victim on a flight of stairs in Sollentuna station, eight miles northwest of Stockholm.
The victim is seen struggling before the pair tumble down the stairs as he grips her necklaces, causing the woman a number of injuries. A witness to the attack is seen running for safety, leaving the elderly woman behind.
After the pair roll to the bottom of the stairs, Kanjo stands up and yanks her chains from her, before calmly walking away and leaving the elderly woman lying on the ground as two female commuters run down the stairs to assist her.
According to court documents obtained by MailOnline, the necklaces were gifts she received more than 40 years ago.
The attack took place in Sollentuna station, around eight miles northwest of Stockholm, with CCTV footage (pictured) capturing the shocking incident
The pair were seen halfway up a set of stairs in the train station, before the man (top right) grabbed the elderly women (top left)
They tumbled down the stairs together as he tried to pull her necklaces from her neck. A commuter was seen running past as the man dragged the elderly women to the floor
The man and the elderly woman in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. He took her necklaces from her after pulling her to the ground
Karam Kanjo (pictured) has been sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison for the attack
When the victim was questioned by police she said she was petrified by the episode and had never experienced violence like that in her life.
Last Monday, he was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison, and was ordered to be deported back to Syria after he was convicted of aggravated robbery, as well as a violation of Sweden’s knife laws and a drug offence.
On top of this, he has to pay her 93,100 Swedish Krona (£6,700) in damages.
Kanjo, a convicted rapist, has perpetrated at least 19 crimes since he entered the country in 2015, including aggravated theft and attempted aggravated theft in 2018 and 2020.
He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for raping a woman in 2021, but was released on parole with nearly a year of his sentence left.
A judge said Kanjo’s crime was ‘life-threatening’, given the age of his victim. The judge said the elderly woman ‘suffered swelling over her left hip and left arm, bruises on the legs, bruises on the left arm and heavy skin scraped around the neck from the necklaces.’
‘The swelling set in, and [caused] pain for several weeks.’
The victim was brought to the floor and had her necklaces yanked from her neck
‘Even a fall to the ground could have caused fractures that were serious. Now the fall happened carelessly down a flight of stairs.
‘It appears to be a lucky coincidence that [the victim] did not suffer very serious injuries in the fall. Although no legal certificate or the like has been presented in the matter, the court considers that, with regard to [the victim’s] age, it is clear that the violence Karam Kanjo used against her was life-threatening.’
He will also be prohibited from returning to Sweden after he is deported, according to the court documents.
Despite him fighting to overturn the deportation order, Swedish authorities told Attunda district court that his ‘connection to Sweden is… very weak.’
‘According to the Norwegian Correctional Service’s investigation, he lives in destructive social conditions without his own accommodation and is unemployed,’ the court was told.
He reportedly told the court that if he were to be sent home, he would be ‘subjected to torture or inhumane treatment.’
Sweden has this year had a ‘net outflow of immigrants for the first time in decades’, according to Annika Sandlund, the UNHCR representative to the Nordic and Baltic countries.
The country’s government, lead by the Moderate party and supported by the far-right Sweden Democrats, has increasingly restricted laws regarding asylum seekers.
Kanjo was caught on CCTV attacking the elderly widow, who was on her way to visit her husband’s grave
For after years of horrific gangland violence blamed largely on Sweden’s soaring migrant population, the centre-Right government has slammed the border shut, announcing a raft of harsh measures aimed at reducing the numbers of foreign-born residents, which currently stands at more than 20 per cent of the 10.6 million total.
Among the policy proposals is an offer of just under £26,000 for legal immigrants willing to return voluntarily to their country of origin; the tightening of family reunification and asylum regulations; and more than doubling the income threshold for those seeking work visas – up from £970 a month to £2,200.
Another such law being pursued by the government is a so-called ‘snitch law’ that would require public sector workers to report illegal immigrants.
As well as toughening up entry restrictions, the government is also hoping to encourage thousands of migrants who have settled here legally to leave voluntarily.
New migration minister Johan Forssell recently boasted: ‘We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in our migration policy.’
Right-wing politician, Nima Gholam Ali Pour – an Iranian refugee himself – told the Mail ‘Sweden has had very difficult problems with immigration in recent years’.
‘We have areas that are 90 per cent immigrants who don’t accept Swedish values and where ethnic Swedes have had to move out.
‘Most people don’t want Sweden to become like the Middle East. And why should we receive more migrants when we can’t integrate those who are already here?’
Over the past decade in particular, Sweden’s plans of creating a harmonious, pluralist society has not come to fruition.
The country that once boasted one of the lowest crime rates in Europe is now the gun-crime capital of the continent, fuelled by violent gangs disproportionately made up of first-generation migrants who control the nation’s illicit drug and prostitution trades.
According to a 2023 police report, there are believed to be 14,000 active gang members in Sweden along with a further 48,000 people with ‘gang affiliation’, many as young as just nine or ten.
Over the first six months of this year alone, Sweden suffered a shocking 148 shootings, resulting in 20 deaths. Last year, 55 people were shot dead across 363 incidents. In 2022, there were a record 62 fatal shootings while 73 people aged between just 15-20 were arrested for suspected or attempted murder with a firearm.
