Teenager jailed for attempted murder without being at crime scene: He did it online

A Swedish teenager has been jailed for more than 10 years for attempted murder, rape and other violent crimes despite carrying them out from behind a screen.

The 18-year-old, known publicly only as “Chai,” targeted young people online and pressured them into harming themselves and carrying out sexual acts.

He was only 15 to 17 when the crimes took place. Among his victims was a young person in Germany who was harmed so severely that they nearly died.

A Swedish court has now convicted Chai of two counts of attempted murder involving the German victim.

He was also convicted of sexual and violent offences against a teenage girl in Australia.

The case stands out because Chai didn't need to be in the same country as his victims to commit some of the most serious crimes against them.

Instead, prosecutors said he used the internet to control and coerce them.

Chai was involved in an online world sometimes referred to as “the Com,” a loose collection of networks where young people have been targeted for extortion and pushed into increasingly violent or degrading acts.

Some of the material produced is then shared among members.

One network associated with this online world is known as 764, which has attracted growing attention from authorities in several countries.

Chai had previously been described by prosecutors as having a high status within that environment, although his lawyer disputed that description.

The Swedish case was also being watched for another reason: whether someone sitting behind a computer could be held responsible for violent crimes physically carried out by somebody else.

The court decided they could.

Senior prosecutor Jenny Ostling said that finding could become important as authorities deal with similar cases.

Chai underwent a forensic psychiatric examination during the proceedings. It found that he was not suffering from a serious mental disorder when the offences were committed.

His lawyer Emily Tovedal said the defence believes the court made an error in its assessment of a large proportion of the charges.

The case is far from an isolated one.

Authorities and researchers have been tracking similar networks across several countries, with victims and suspects often being teenagers themselves.

That is also part of what makes the phenomenon difficult to deal with.

“These are young people recruiting other young people,” security researcher Bjorn Ihler previously said, adding, “It is a youth phenomenon.”