A 21-year-old Swedish man has been charged with the triple murder in a barber shop in the university town of Uppsala on April 29 last year. Four other men have been charged with crimes in connection to the shooting. The trial is scheduled to start on Wednesday, February 18th.
Charging documents describe the act as “carefully planned and part of organized crime.” The accused is also charged with two attempted murders in southern Sweden two weeks earlier. In both cases, the crimes appear to have been committed as “crimes as a service”—that is, murder for hire.
The accused was motivated by the opportunity to make money, prosecutor Andreas Nyberg said. In a letter seized in the investigation, the accused writes,
From June 16, 2025, I will have one million kronor [about €94,600] that will come to me in lump sums and smaller amounts through various rushes. In return for this money I will give my all and do my best as a klivare [hit man or enforcer]
According to the investigation, the accused, wearing a mask, first fired at two men on the street outside the barber shop. Following one of them inside, the shooter fired at least eleven shots. Three young men—15, 16, and 20 years old—who were huddling behind furniture were shot at close range and killed.
It is unclear whether the victims were the intended targets. While the two older victims had connections to criminal networks, the 15-year-old did not. He was just there to get a haircut “to look good for Valborg [Walpurgis night],” his mother said.
Four other men have been charged in connection with the murders. An 18-year-old is alleged to have acted as an ‘assistant,’ conducting reconnaissance and handling weapons and clothing, while two men in their 20s are accused of buying masks and equipment, one of them also facing charges for drug-related offenses. A 25-year-old, who allegedly received the guns used and hid them after the murders, has been charged with aggravated weapons offenses and harboring a criminal.
Three men suspected of ordering the attack were dropped from the investigation in November 2025 due to insufficient evidence. But the case is still not over, the prosecutor said.
“In order to prosecute the instigator, you need to get to the perpetrators and accomplices—those who are now being prosecuted. This investigation will move forward and try to find the instigator,” prosecutor Andreas Nyberg told Samnytt.
The accused 21-year-old, who denies all charges, has been examined by a forensic psychiatrist who deemed him to not be suffering from any serious mental disorder.
Sweden, once regarded as one of Europe’s most peaceful nations, is facing levels of gang violence unprecedented on the continent. The country has become a hotspot for drug gangs that often deploy teenage hitmen and makeshift explosives in their violent turf wars.
