“Daniel Nyqvist took our joie de vivre and my memories of Mohamed”

Emotional in district court when family members first met defendant Daniel Nyqvist, 37.

Of: Kerstin nilsson

Published: September 15, 2020 kl. 18.04
Updated: September 15, 2020 kl. 18.43

LINKÖPING. Tears flowed today at Linköping District Court.

For almost 16 years, the relatives of Mohamed Ammouris and Anna-Lena Svenson have been waiting for an answer: Who? Why?

Now sitting there, Daniel Nyqvist, 37 years old.

– It took away the joy of living. He took Mohamed, and took my memories, says Mohamed’s older sister crying.

It was an emotional day in Chamber 3 of the Linköping District Court when the trial against Daniel Nyqvist, 37, began on Tuesday.

He is linked to the double murder in Linköping in 2004 through DNA – this is also how he was found, with the help of advanced genealogy – and already in the first police questioning he admitted.

Now he was sitting there in the courtroom. With a full beard and green prison garb and staring, alternately down the table, alternately in front of him.

Not once did it seem like he was looking at relatives, not at anyone else, actually.

He sat there, but he sat to himself, as if he were in his own bubble.

Like it seems to have lived all these years, when it went unnoticed.

Alone.

– He seems very neutral, suspended, at the same time it can be understood that it is also a difficult situation for him, says later the chamber prosecutor Britt-Louise Viklund.

He wants care, not prison

It is she who sets the tone in the courtroom, an unusually warm and empathetic tone, for being in a courtroom, where reality can seem much more brutal than elsewhere.

She cares, not just for family members, but for everyone, including Daniel Nyqvist.

During the break, his lawyer, Johan Ritzer, explains that he tried to prepare a client for trial.

– Think that it is difficult to sit here, meet relatives and the attention of the media. Just being here is a strain. You can also see that he goes very deep into himself, says Johan Ritzer.

– He handles it anyway.

For Daniel Nyqvist, it is important what the penalty will be, says his lawyer, which will not be prison, but care.

For relatives, it is important to know why, but they did not understand this day, only tomorrow is Daniel Nyqvist’s turn to speak.

On the first day, relatives were allowed to speak.

After the prosecutor recounted what happened that morning of October 19, 2004 and reviewed the evidence: the DNA fingerprints on the knife, the hat and the kiosk, where the hat stopped, it was the family’s turn to speak.

For the sake of the unusual before the accused.

I often met Mohamed

Mohamed Ammouri was only 8 years old when he was assassinated. Anna-Lena Svenson was 56 years old.

I was on my way to school, I was in second grade; she was on her way to work as an SFI teacher.

I only had eight minutes to work.

None of those involved knew each other, but Anna-Lena Svenson and her husband often ran into little Mohamed as he passed their house in the mornings on his way to school, her husband says now, nearly 16 years later.

– Sometimes, when we went to work, there was a person you looked at and it was Mohamed. He always said “hello”. She was always in a very good mood. Sometimes we talk about him: “Now that guy is coming.” We met him several times. It was probably 20 to 30 times, her husband says.

Although it is a great stress for both him and his daughter, as well as Mohamed Ammouri’s family, who are sitting in a row behind them, meeting Daniel Nyqvist for the first time, he seems remarkably calm and relaxed.

He says that Anna-Lena was very happy. She enjoyed her job and was happy with her life. For several reasons.

– Our daughter had just gotten engaged and Anna-Lena was going to host an engagement dinner on Saturday. She was happy as a lark, says her husband.

The joy came to an abrupt end.

Life was shattered

Anna-Lena Svenson walked out the door and saw Mohamed Ammouri stabbed in the back, before she herself was attacked and stabbed with the same knife.

She was still alive when she was taken to the hospital, and one of the last things she asked while she was still alive was how the boy had fared.

The boy he was about for much of the first day of the trial.

Anna-Lena Svenson’s husband and daughter have not claimed damages, in addition to what they have already received from the Crime Victims Compensation Authority of SEK 50,000 each, for which they were not held accountable for his suffering then, and now, in the courtroom.

For Mohamed Ammouri’s relatives, the situation is different, where only Father Hassan, who received 50,000 Swedish crowns from the Crime Victims Compensation Authority, and the younger sister, who was 13 years old when the murder occurred and received 50,000 crowns Swedish women from an insurance company, have received damage.

Now the applicant’s assistant, Elisabeth Massi Fritz, is claiming a total of SEK 950,000 in damages to Mohamed’s parents and his five siblings.

So now they are forced to sit in the courtroom and say how bad they have felt and feel.

It is sad and difficult to listen to.

That morning, the family’s life literally fell apart.

The suffering they testify to is difficult to absorb. They have found strength in each other, but each of them testifies to 16 years of anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and social isolation.

“Mohamed was the joy”

Mohamed, then the youngest of the family, was the axis around which a large part of the family revolved; with him, the joy of living disappeared.

– Mohamed was laughter, he was joy, he was energy. They all liked it. He was always talking and listening, says Father Hassan, while Mohamed’s mother silently cries next to him.

She does this all day, the pile of used tissues grows on the table in front of her; When her sons and daughters share their suffering, sometimes it becomes too much for her and she has to leave the room.

One by one, they tell about Mohamed, the animator of the family, the bully who loved school and football.

He liked to finish.

Mohamed, who was always accompanied by his older sister, then 13, to school.

Except just this day.

– It was the first time that Mohamed left without me, says his younger older sister, who was 13 when the murder occurred.

She is not in the courtroom, she is at home with sick children and can be heard on the phone.

But his words are equally strong anyway.

It hurts to hear her count.

Saw Mohamed dead

He leaves his house a few minutes after Mohamed, goes up the same stairs as him, to Åsgatan, where he meets the police, an ambulance and roadblocks.

He sees Mohamed lying in the street, he is already dead, but he cannot assimilate what he sees. the impact is too great.

– I see a child lying on the ground. I recognized his shoes … But I didn’t want to think it was him, she says.

She runs home screaming, down the stairs and into the door. A moment later, her mother accompanies her to school.

She can’t stop thinking that it was Mohamed, and when her teacher called her and was told that Mohamed will never come to school, she suffers.

A moment later, she wakes up in another room and the police push her into the school.

There, the family receives the message that they have not yet recovered:

Mohamed is dead.

He suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Like her siblings, she was unable to go to school and her grades suffered.

“He buried us alive”

His whole life has been marked by what happened that morning, in Åsgatan, when his little brother and Anna-Lena Svenson, as it seems, completely random and without provocation, were killed with a large number of stab wounds.

Like his brothers cry when he talks about his mother:

– I don’t know if there are words to describe. She had never been like this before. Mom has been feeling very bad mentally. She has had panic attacks and so have I. She is always sad, but tries to be strong. We know how much you have suffered.

She has gone to therapy herself and feels better today, but black thoughts have haunted her all these years.

He speaks directly to Daniel Nyqvist, when he slowly and clearly says the words that he has carried for so long.

– It took away the joy of living, Daniel Nyqvist. He buried us alive.

And not only that:

– Daniel Nyqvist took Mohamed – and my memories of Mohamed.

Lost memory

For psychological reasons, she cannot remember Mohamed before the murder, even though she lived with him for eight years.

– I don’t remember anything about Mohamed before 2004, he says.

You have tried, but it doesn’t work.

He doesn’t remember anything about their lives together, what they did, how he was, where they said.

At the end of the first day of the trial, his older sister Allia Ammouri stands in front of all the microphones and television cameras.

Then when it happened, she was 19 years old. Today she is pregnant and, both in and out of the courtroom, is suing her family.

– We have met many times at home, they have been hard days, everything has returned, he says.

She and her family first met the suspect man in the courtroom and also admitted that he killed her little brother, with 27 stab wounds, that morning nearly 16 years ago.

– It was very hard. I tried not to look at it at first, she says.

Before tomorrow, when Daniel Nyqvist himself is heard and hopefully recounts what happened that morning, she says:

– We await answers to our questions. Why? Because my brother?

The question is whether you will get an answer.

Published: September 15, 2020 kl. 18.04

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