A group of five Arab migrants have been arrested and charged with aggravated assault in Sweden after filming themselves pushing a Ukrainian refugee into a river and watching the man fight for his life in the freezing cold water.
The incident occurred on Nov. 22 last year when the Ukrainian victim, working as a truck driver for a Polish hauling company, decided to stop at Sydhamnen in Malmö and opted to try his hand at some late-night fishing in the nearby river.
The truck driver’s dash cam showed a group of Arab males approaching the man and engaging him in a conversation. The Ukrainian refugee appeared to not understand the group of migrants and shows them the fish he had caught, before proceeding to turn around and continue fishing.
At this moment, one of the Arab men powerfully shoves the truck driver in the back, causing him to fall into the extremely cold river. Later, when the police measured the temperature, they learned the water was just 8°C (46.4°F) — considered to be dangerously cold, with even the most extreme-cold swimmers at risk of hypothermia if exposed to such a temperature for more than a few minutes.
One of the Arab migrants filmed the assault, and the men can be heard laughing uncontrollably as their victim struggles and splashes in the water. With no ladder to assist his escape, he can be heard screaming desperately for help as his heavy, wet clothes pull him under the surface.
Eventually, some of the group helped him back onto the platform, where they left him for dead and drove off in a vehicle. The man was then assisted by three witnesses who heard his cries for help and contacted the emergency services.
The Ukrainian truck driver’s dash cam caught the moment the migrant group approached their victim.
When tended to by emergency responders, the victim’s body temperature was just 34 degrees, which is classed as hypothermia.
When interviewed by police, the Ukrainian refugee said he had been scared the migrant group would kill him.
The car was swiftly located by authorities, and its occupants were arrested and charged with aggravated assault. During police questioning, one member of the group insisted they were only “having fun” and did not intend for the victim to fall into the water.
The five migrants are all between the ages of 20 and 23. Four of them are Iraqi nationals who arrived in Sweden between 2007 and 2014 and who all now possess Swedish citizenship. The fifth arrived in Sweden from Syria in 2014 and obtained Swedish citizenship in 2016.
The Samnytt news outlet reported that the man who pushed the victim into the freezing water, Hussein Fakhir Ayyal Al-Rubaye, has already been convicted of multiple crimes in Sweden and had already been convicted of a crime prior to obtaining his Swedish citizenship in 2018.
The Swedish prosecutor handling the case accused the group of being “together and in agreement” in their joint attack on the truck driver and showed “special recklessness and brutality” in their treatment of their victim.