An asylum seeker is being deported back to Syria after pushing an elderly woman down a flight of stairs during a violent robbery in Sweden.
Karam Kanjo was caught on CCTV grabbing the 91-year-old at Solletuna Station, near Stockholm, on August 29, while she was en route to visit her husband’s grave.
An ensuing struggle ended with both victim and perpetrator tumbling down a staircase, before Kanjo grabbed the woman’s necklaces and walked away.
He was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison on Monday, November 4, for aggravated robbery and violations of Sweden’s knife and drug laws.
He will be deported back to Syria and was told to pay his victim 93,100 Krona (£6,700) in damages.
A judge said the crime was “life-threatening”, describing it as a “lucky coincidence” that the 91-year-old escaped with no serious injuries from the fall.
When interviewed by police, she said she had never experienced violence like it before in her life.
Kango entered Sweden in 2015 during Europe’s migrant crisis and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for raping a woman in 2021 before being released with almost a year of his sentence left.
The shocking assault comes amid increased restrictions on migration from Sweden’s far-right government including a ‘snitch law’ which legally requres public sector workers to report illegal immigrants.
The Swedish Migration Agency said in August that the country is on track for its lowest number of asylum seekers since 1997, progress that Minister for Migration Maria Malmer Stenergard said was “necessary to strengthen integration and reduce social exclusion”.
However, right-wing politician and Iranian refugee Nima Gholam Ali Pour told the Mail: “Sweden has had very difficult problems with immigration in recent years.
“We have areas that are 90% immigrants who don’t accept Swedish values and where ethnic Swedes have had to move out.
“Why should we receive more migrants when we can’t integrate those who are already here?”