She is the country's first female gang shooter

Murder
First woman convicted of gang murder

Oisin Cantwell

News columnist

This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.

Updated 12.45 | Published 12.14

Kwanchai Iamchaeng was sentenced to life in prison.

For the first time, a woman has been sentenced to life for a gang murder.

A long line of circumstantial evidence convinced the Court of Appeal.

On December 20 last year, a 17-year-old boy was shot dead on a street in Norrköping.

Today, the Court of Appeal overturned the district court's acquittal against the accused shooter and sentenced her.

That prosecutor Anna Hjorth lacks technical evidence that concretely ties Kwanchai Iamchaeng to the murder is of secondary importance, the Court of Appeal considers.

Instead, it is a long line of circumstantial evidence, some heavier than others, that convinces the court.

Even OJ Simpson's army of polished lawyers would have had a hard time conjuring up all the circumstances that were put on the table.

The Court of Appeal does note that the murder took place within the framework of a gang conflict and that a number of people may have had an interest in carrying it out.

But there is nothing in the investigation to suggest that anyone other than Iamchaeng held the weapon.

It's already bothersome for her. Annoying, but not enough.

However, a lot of other things also belong to the matter.

There is evidence that the woman used the murder weapon on a previous occasion, she had a close connection to a person previously killed, a crime that allegedly triggered this murder, in a chat shortly after the shooting she was instructed to buy a wig and flee to Thailand, in new messages over the next few days she was instructed to lie low.

There is more circumstantial evidence, but my space is limited and I imagine that the reader of this text already has a good idea of ​​the strength of the prosecution's card.

The defense made an ambitious attempt with circumstances that argued against it being Iamchaeng who shot.

But the judges are not impressed. "According to the judgment of the Court of Appeal, however, none of what has been presented speaks against the fact that she was the one who shot."

That women are part of criminal gangs and perform various dirty jobs is nothing new. They are valuable in the criminal organizations, as they often do not attract the attention of the police to the same extent as young men.

Female murderers are not an unknown phenomenon either.

What is new, however, is that a female shooter is sentenced. It is the first life sentence ever of its kind in Sweden.

Other circumstances are more familiar. Iamchaeng has no criminal background, she is a typical performer.

Messy upbringing, problems with drugs, an ideal personality type for unscrupulous gang leaders.

Acquittal in one instance, life imprisonment in the other.

In no other legal context can the margins be so small and the differences so great as in the case of crime of the worst imaginable kind.

Khwanchai Iamchaeng is sentenced to life for gang murder