Revealed: Asylum seeker was on parole for rape and had prevented deportation regardless of quite a few convictions when he was filmed pushing a 91-year-old Swedish widow down stairs and robbing her

An asylum seeker who pushed a 91-year-old widow down a flight of stairs was on parole for rape at the time and had avoided deportation by Swedish authorities due to ‘lenient’ rules, local media reports.

Karam Kanjo, 26, was caught on train station CCTV assaulting his elderly victim before ripping her gold necklaces from her neck as she made her way to her husband’s grave on August 29.

The Syrian national has now been found guilty of aggravated robbery and will be deported after Sweden toughened up its rules on removing immigrants convicted of crimes.

Court documents seen by MailOnline show Kanjo has been booked 19 times by police and had a string of convictions since he arrived in Sweden in 2015, including for theft and rape, which he was found guilty of in May 2022. 

He was given a prison sentence of two years and six months for the sex attack, but prosecutors did not request deportation at the time, according to Swedish media, likely because he had been living in Sweden for six years.

After serving just half of his sentence, Kanjo was let out on parole in October last year. His attack on the elderly widow was carried out while he was still on parole. 

Horrifying video of Kanjo’s attack has shocked Sweden and reignited the country’s debate on migration and the efficacy of the criminal justice system.

It has raised questions as to why he was not deported following his rape conviction, with Expressen reporting that the prosecutor ‘does not remember why she did not demand deportation but “guess[es]” that she had “a good reason”‘.

The decision came after a 2019 Supreme Court ruling in a similar case that ‘extraordinary reasons’ would be required to deport a person who had lived longer than four years in Sweden.

Kanjo seemingly benefitted from this precedent in May 2019 – just months before the then-Justice Minister tightened the rules, according to Expressen.

Last Monday, Kanjo was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison, and was ordered to be deported back to Syria after he was convicted of aggravated robbery, as well as a violation of Sweden’s knife laws and a drug offence. 

The court assessed that Kanjo – who has lived in Sweden for nearly a decade after entering during Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015 –  has a ‘very weak’ connection to the country.

His violent crime was caught on camera at Sollentuna station, eight miles northwest of Stockholm, in August, a clip which has served as a key piece of evidence in his conviction. 

In it, he is seen grabbing his elderly victim as she walked up the stairs at the station.

The 91-year-old is seen struggling before the pair tumble down the stairs as he grips her necklaces, causing the woman a number of injuries. 

A witness to the attack is seen running for safety, leaving the elderly woman behind.

After the pair roll to the bottom of the stairs, Kanjo stands up and yanks her chains from her, before calmly walking away and leaving the elderly woman lying on the ground as two female commuters run down the stairs to assist her. 

According to court documents obtained by MailOnline, the necklaces were gifts she received more than 40 years ago. 

When the victim was questioned by police she said she was petrified by the episode and had never experienced violence like it in her life.  

As well as being deported, Kanjo has been ordered to pay his victim 93,100 Swedish Krona (£6,700) in damages. 

A judge said Kanjo’s crime was ‘life-threatening’, given the age of his victim. The judge said the elderly woman ‘suffered swelling over her left hip and left arm, bruises on the legs, bruises on the left arm and heavy skin scraped around the neck from the necklaces.’

‘The swelling set in, and [caused] pain for several weeks.’ 

‘Even a fall to the ground could have caused fractures that were serious. Now the fall happened carelessly down a flight of stairs.

‘It appears to be a lucky coincidence that [the victim] did not suffer very serious injuries in the fall. Although no legal certificate or the like has been presented in the matter, the court considers that, with regard to [the victim’s] age, it is clear that the violence Karam Kanjo used against her was life-threatening.’

He will also be prohibited from returning to Sweden after he is deported, according to the court documents. 

Despite him fighting to overturn the deportation order, Swedish authorities told Attunda district court that his ‘connection to Sweden is… very weak.’ 

‘According to the Norwegian Correctional Service’s investigation, he lives in destructive social conditions without his own accommodation and is unemployed,’ the court was told. 

He reportedly told the court that if he were to be sent home, he would be ‘subjected to torture or inhumane treatment.’

Sweden has this year had a ‘net outflow of immigrants for the first time in decades’, according to Annika Sandlund, the UNHCR representative to the Nordic and Baltic countries. 

The country’s government, lead by the Moderate party and supported by the far-right Sweden Democrats, has increasingly restricted laws regarding asylum seekers.   

For after years of horrific gangland violence blamed largely on Sweden’s soaring migrant population, the centre-Right government has slammed the border shut, announcing a raft of harsh measures aimed at reducing the numbers of foreign-born residents, which currently stands at more than 20 per cent of the 10.6 million total.

Among the policy proposals is an offer of just under £26,000 for legal immigrants willing to return voluntarily to their country of origin; the tightening of family reunification and asylum regulations; and more than doubling the income threshold for those seeking work visas – up from £970 a month to £2,200.

Another such law being pursued by the government is a so-called ‘snitch law’ that would require public sector workers to report illegal immigrants. 

 As well as toughening up entry restrictions, the government is also hoping to encourage thousands of migrants who have settled here legally to leave voluntarily. 

New migration minister Johan Forssell recently boasted: ‘We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in our migration policy.’   

Right-wing politician, Nima Gholam Ali Pour – an Iranian refugee himself – told the Mail ‘Sweden has had very difficult problems with immigration in recent years’.

‘We have areas that are 90 per cent immigrants who don’t accept Swedish values and where ethnic Swedes have had to move out. 

‘Most people don’t want Sweden to become like the Middle East. And why should we receive more migrants when we can’t integrate those who are already here?’ 

Over the past decade in particular, Sweden’s plans of creating a harmonious, pluralist society has not come to fruition.

The country that once boasted one of the lowest crime rates in Europe is now the gun-crime capital of the continent, fuelled by violent gangs disproportionately made up of first-generation migrants who control the nation’s illicit drug and prostitution trades.  

According to a 2023 police report, there are believed to be 14,000 active gang members in Sweden along with a further 48,000 people with ‘gang affiliation’, many as young as just nine or ten.

Over the first six months of this year alone, Sweden suffered a shocking 148 shootings, resulting in 20 deaths. Last year, 55 people were shot dead across 363 incidents. 

In 2022, there were a record 62 fatal shootings while 73 people aged between just 15-20 were arrested for suspected or attempted murder with a firearm.