Thief who robbed Swedish man after he fell onto subway tracks sentenced to prison, deportation

Associated Press | Oct 23, 2012 8:49 AM ET | Last Updated: Oct 23, 2012 3:10 PM ET
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YouTube/CCTV Screengrabs from a CCTV video showing a man falling on train tracks in Sweden and then getting robbed by another man on the platform and left on the tracks. The man is then run over by a slow moving train. The man survived.

 

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — A 28-year-old Tunisian who was caught on security camera stealing from a man who had fallen onto the tracks on the Stockholm subway and then leaving him to be hit by a train was sentenced Tuesday to one and a half years in prison for theft.

A Swedish court ordered Nadar Khiari to pay $1,800 in damages to his victim and ruled that he will be deported after serving his sentence. He was not charged with leaving the man on the tracks, since Swedish law does not require people to help.

The September incident stirred outrage in Sweden after the footage was broadcast on TV and went viral around the world.

The video shows the drunk victim falling from a subway platform. Khiari then jumps onto the tracks, steals his belongings and leaves him there. The victim was hit by a train and lost a foot, but survived.
The court wrote that the victim had been “in a particularly vulnerable position, lying intoxicated and injured on the subway track without any opportunity to protect himself, in danger of being killed or being seriously injured. Nadar Khiari must have been fully aware of this.”

Khiari confessed to stealing the man’s cellphone, a silver case and a gold necklace, saying he was unemployed and needed money for food and medicine. He apologized for not alerting subway staff that there was a man on the tracks.

He was also convicted of another theft, committed in August. It was not immediately clear whether he would appeal the ruling.