STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -A Swedish court found three men guilty of accessory to the murder last year of the award-winning hip-hop artist known by the alias C.Gambino, it said on Wednesday.
The Swedish artist, who kept his identity hidden and wore a mask in public, was shot dead in a parking garage in June 2024 in a suspected gang-related attack in Gothenburg on the Nordic country’s west coast.
The men – Hassan Rabeie, 22, Vide Atterstam, 20, and Fatjam Vardari, 21 – have denied the charges against them, according to Swedish media.
Rabeie and Vardari had been charged with murder, or alternatively accessory to murder, but the Gothenburg District Court said in a statement that the investigation had not established beyond reasonable doubt that they were the ones who actually shot the rapper.
As a result, all three were convicted of accessory to murder.
The court sentenced Rabeie to life imprisonment. The other two were sentenced to 15 years and six months, and 12 years and six months, respectively.
“The shooting had the character of a pure execution,” the court said.
“The crime has its background in a conflict between criminal networks.”
Rabeie’s lawyer, Sina Safashad, told Swedish broadcaster SVT her client would appeal against the verdict.
“We note that the district court partly agrees with us because he is not convicted of murder, but aiding and abetting murder should not result in a life sentence,” Safashad said.
The lawyer representing Atterstam told Reuters the verdict was disappointing and declined to comment further.
Vardari’s lawyer was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Reuters.
The late rapper had a similar alias to that of the U.S. artist Childish Gambino.
Sweden has suffered from a wave of gang-related violence for more than a decade, though the homicide and manslaughter rate dropped last year.
(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen; Additional reporting by Louise Rasmussen; Editing by Anna Ringstrom and Aidan Lewis)
