Stockholm: A SWEDISH court yesterday found a TV journalist guilty of human trafficking for helping a Syrian boy migrate to the country and gave him a suspended sentence.
In the spring of 2014, Fredrik Onnevall was filming a documentary about response of European nationalist parties to migration crisis when he met the 15-year-old boy in Greece.
Along with two colleagues, Onnevall helped “Abed”, which is not his real name, travel to Sweden.
The teenager was travelling alone and asked Onnevall to help him get to Sweden to join his cousin.
“It took 10 to 15 minutes for me to get that question into my head, and to understand what he was asking me and to make up my mind,” the Onnevall said in an interview last month. His lawyers had called for an acquittal on the grounds that he acted out of compassion and concern for the boy’s fate.
But the Malmo district court found him guilty of human trafficking and gave him a suspended sentence.
