A Syrian asylum seeker is set to be deported from Sweden after 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, grabbing his elderly victim halfway up the stairs at Sollentuna station, around eight miles northwest of Stockholm.
The victim is seen struggling for a second, before the pair tumbled down the stairs as he gripped her necklaces, causing the victim severe injuries. A witness to the attack was seen running for safety, leaving the elderly woman behind.
After the pair rolled to the bottom of the stairs, Kanjo stood up and yanked her chains from her, before calmly walking away and leaving the elderly woman lying on the ground as two female commuters walked down the stairs to assist her.
According to court documents obtained by , the necklaces were gifts she received more than 40 years ago.
When the victim was questioned by police, she said she was petrified by the episode, and said she 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 Krone (£6,649) in damages.
Kanjo, a convicted rapist, has also perpetrated at least 19 crimes since he entered the country in 2015, including aggravated theft and attempted aggravated theft.
He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for raping a woman in 2021, but was released 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.’
‘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.’
But Sweden’s Migration Agency said that since he is old enough to join the army, it is possible for him to buy his way out of conscription.
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.
One such law being pursued by the government is a so-called ‘snitch law’ that would require public sector workers to report illegal immigrants.