Three men have been found not guilty of the murder of Marcus Gabrielsen at the beginning of May.One, aged 18, was found guilty of serious assault and sentenced to a year in prison, while a 19 year old, who was found to have assaulted Marcus Gabrielsen's friend, was given a suspended sentence. A third was cleared of all charges. The prosecutor argued that they should be found guilty of murder or of causing another person's death, and given sentences of between six and eight years. But the case was undermined by a lack of technical evidence and by the fact that several witnesses changed their stories during the trial, or simply "forgot" what had happened. Marcus Gabrielsen and a friend are said to have been chased after asking one of the attackers not to urinate in a doorway on the street. They ran from one side of the street to the other, where Gabrielsen was either brought to the ground or fell, hitting his head on a concrete wall. Witnesses told police that they saw several men kicking and hitting Gabrielsen as he lay on the ground.

Despite the fact there were many people on Kungsgatan at the time, nobody came to Gabrielsen's aid and he was left unconcious. He died in hospital two days later. The 18 year old admitted kicking Marcus in the stomach but denied targeting his head. There was no forensic evidence linking him to the attack. Evidence from 16 witnesses was heard by the court but several gave substantially different accounts to what they had said to police at the time. During police interviews a young woman told how she had heard one of the defendents say how he had "kicked and jumped on a guy's head". But in the trial she said she no longer remembered this. The lawyer defending the 18 year old, told the news that the fact that the witnesses changed their story would have significantly weakened the prosecutor's case. "It made no difference for my client, since he admitted," he said. "But for the others it could have played a part."

I think this is just terrible. Nobody helped Marcus that night, and then everybody got amnesia and could only remember what had happened before and after, but not the 'kicking' part. I knew that Sweden had a reputation as a cowardly country, but this seems to show it is a cowardly people as well. There is no excuse for what happened, those three prosecuted should be sent to prison for what they did and not walking out of the court house like they haven't taken someones life. I really can't believe that people stood by, that night, as someone was killed.. It scares me to know that I might not get aid from anyone if I would get attacked.

Marcus had courage to stand up that night and tell those 'killers' to stop doing something he believed was wrong. He is gone forever, but I hope this will be a wake up call for Sweden and it's people that we are on the wrong path if we allow something like this to happen, 'cause it could as easily had happened to anyone of us. Also, I think the legal system in such cases like this one showes how insufficient it works. In my mind there is no doubt that those three guys took part, one or another way, in the killing of Marcus.