A young Métis man was discovered murdered in Denmark in late June. A few hours later, the police apprehend two suspects, one of whom has claimed racist sympathies, provoking a public debate even if the Public Prosecutor's Office on Friday denied any racist motivation.
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“ The crime resulted from a personal relationship (between the victim and the alleged perpetrators) which went very wrong. He has no racist motivation , "the prosecutor in charge of the case, Bente Pedersen Lund, told AFP. The body of the victim, a 28-year-old Métis man, son of a Danish and a Tanzanian woman according to the press, was found on June 23 at dawn, next to a kiosk in a picturesque forest Bornholm Island, east of Copenhagen, in the Baltic.
The alleged perpetrators, two brothers in their twenties who knew the victim, were quickly arrested and detained after a closed-door hearing. They plead guilty to serious assault but not murder, according to the preliminary indictment obtained by AFP, which details the stab wounds received by the deceased on the face and body. At least one of the attackers knelt on the victim's neck.
Svastika tattooed on the leg
" The elder brother (...) has a swastika tattooed on his leg and sympathies for the white supremacist movement and the victim is black so I understand why people are wondering whether this is a crime or not racial, "Asser Gregersen, a lawyer for the two brothers' younger brother, told AFP. He had no overt sympathy for the far right. However, for Asser Gregersen, as for the Prosecutor's Office and the police, this is not a hate crime.
" I understand the speculation, but the public must also have confidence in what lawyers and authorities say and not just think that the police are ignoring a racial motive ," he said. An argument that does not convince a section of Danish public opinion. " We are not there to investigate the reasons but we are wondering about the reasons which led the police to put an end to racism so quickly ," summed up the spokesperson for the Afro-Danish collective, Roger Courage Matthisen. " With racism, there is no on / off switch, and it is clear that the alleged perpetrators have strong Nazi and racist connections ," he said.
The prosecution did not detail the reasons why the trail of a racist crime was not privileged, referring to the secrecy of the investigation. " We have not turned a blind eye to this possibility but it is unlikely, " concluded Bente Pedersen Lund. In Denmark, complaints of racist crime are rare but constantly increasing. They almost doubled between 2016 and 2018, from 140 to 260, according to figures from the Crime Prevention Council.
