STOCKHOLM: A Swedish court on Wednesday sentenced four men ages 19 to 22 to prison terms for their roles in the killing of a rapper in last year.
Masked 26-year-old rapper C. Gambino — whose real name was Karar Ramadan, and not to be confused with American rapper Childish Gambino — was the victim of a shooting in a parking garage in the city of Gothenburg on June 4, 2024.
A total of four men were charged over the killing, two of which had been charged with “murder or aiding and abetting murder” — but the court could not definitely establish that the two had fired the killing shots.
“The shooting was akin to an execution and caused the victim severe suffering,” judge Anne Rapp said in a statement.
“Furthermore, the crime had its origins in a conflict between criminal networks and was committed using firearms in a public place, which is a particularly aggravating factor,” Rapp added.
The investigation had not shown that the rapper himself was active in a criminal network, but people in his entourage were reportedly linked to these networks, said the court.
One of the four men, aged 22, was sentenced to life imprisonment for aiding and abetting murder because he had participated in the planning and preparation of the murder, notably by providing the car used by the perpetrators.
The car was later burned and completely destroyed.
A 20-year-old man was found guilty of both aiding and abetting murder and aggravated harboring of a criminal was sentenced to 15 years and six months in prison.
A third man, aged 21, was sentenced for aiding and abetting murder to 12 years and six months in prison.
A fourth man, aged 19, was handed a much lesser 10-month prison term for protecting a criminal and vandalism.
C. Gambino was named hip hop artist of the year at the 2024 Swedish recording industry’s Grammis Awards the month before his murder.
Another award-winning Swedish rapper, Einar, was shot and killed in Stockholm in a gang conflict in October 2021.
The Scandinavian country has struggled to contain surging gang violence in recent years, with shootings and bombings now weekly occurrences.
