Faith healer faces five years in prison for rape
A 60-year old faith healer has had his five-year prison sentence for sexual abuse upheld by the Court of Appeal.
Apart from the rejection of three charges of molestation, Friday's verdict was almost identical to that reached by Karlstad District Court in December last year.
The faith healer was found guilty of abusing seven women, including two girls under the age of 15. He was also found guilty of raping one of the girls when she was 14 years old.
The women were lured to various different locations on the pretext of having their souls healed.
Instead the 60-year-old's "patients" became the victims of abuse at an educational centre in Västerås, a roadside motel outside Örebro, a healing centre in his home town of Karlstad, and his own flat in Karlstad.
The man is said to have selected the women on the basis of their "special energies". When he got them to the treatment room, he requested them to remove their clothes in order to avoid "blocking" contact with the spirit world, according to Expressen.
Using a method known as "trance healing", the man claimed to channel spirits through an ancient Chinese doctor called Mister Lu.
When the women were naked on the treatment table, the healer is said to have sexually abused them while giving himself pleasure.
In order to ward off the women's protests he threatened them with the onset of a range of deadly illnesses.
The offences took place between 2001 and 2005. One of the girls was eleven or twelve years old when she was first abused.
The defendant worked as a faith healer in a number of towns in central and western Sweden.
During the summer the women began relating their experiences. At the beginning of November the man was arrested and remanded in custody.
The healer denied committing any crime but was found guilty by Karlstad District Court and sentenced to five years in prison.
He was also ordered to pay the women compensation to the value of 472,000 kronor, a figure that has been adjusted slightly by the appeals court.
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Apart from the rejection of three charges of molestation, Friday's verdict was almost identical to that reached by Karlstad District Court in December last year.
The faith healer was found guilty of abusing seven women, including two girls under the age of 15. He was also found guilty of raping one of the girls when she was 14 years old.
The women were lured to various different locations on the pretext of having their souls healed.
Instead the 60-year-old's "patients" became the victims of abuse at an educational centre in Västerås, a roadside motel outside Örebro, a healing centre in his home town of Karlstad, and his own flat in Karlstad.
The man is said to have selected the women on the basis of their "special energies". When he got them to the treatment room, he requested them to remove their clothes in order to avoid "blocking" contact with the spirit world, according to Expressen.
Using a method known as "trance healing", the man claimed to channel spirits through an ancient Chinese doctor called Mister Lu.
When the women were naked on the treatment table, the healer is said to have sexually abused them while giving himself pleasure.
In order to ward off the women's protests he threatened them with the onset of a range of deadly illnesses.
The offences took place between 2001 and 2005. One of the girls was eleven or twelve years old when she was first abused.
The defendant worked as a faith healer in a number of towns in central and western Sweden.
During the summer the women began relating their experiences. At the beginning of November the man was arrested and remanded in custody.
The healer denied committing any crime but was found guilty by Karlstad District Court and sentenced to five years in prison.
He was also ordered to pay the women compensation to the value of 472,000 kronor, a figure that has been adjusted slightly by the appeals court.
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