分类： society

A high-profile criminal trial got underway on Friday at a district court in Härnösand, a quiet coastal town in eastern Sweden, where a 61-year-old local man faces severe charges including multiple counts of rape, assault, and coercion for allegedly forcing his ex-wife to provide paid sexual services to more than 120 men over three years.

Prosecutors lay out a disturbing account of systematic abuse that exploited the isolation of the couple’s remote farm near Kramfors, in northern Sweden, to maintain control over the victim. According to official charging documents, the abuse began in 2022, when the defendant first coerced his then-wife into engaging in sexual encounters with men he sourced and communicated with online, who traveled to the couple’s property from across Sweden to pay for the services. The violence and coercion only ended in October 2025, when the victim gathered the courage to file an official report with police. She has since divorced her abuser, and both she and the defendant have had their full identities withheld from public records to protect the victim’s privacy.

Prosecutors allege the defendant used multiple tools to break his wife’s resistance and maintain his control: he plied her with drugs to lower her ability to resist, installed surveillance cameras throughout the family home to monitor her every move (including recording the non-consensual sexual encounters, footage that will be entered as evidence in the trial), and exploited her limited social network to cut her off from outside support. He also carried out repeated violent threats against her, including threats to kill her, burn her with petrol, and sever her fingers, according to the indictment cited by Swedish public broadcaster SVT.

Lead prosecutor Ida Annerstedt told Swedish national daily Expressen ahead of the opening of the trial that the defendant intentionally “exploited her particularly vulnerable situation” and her deep-seated fear of him to gradually normalize his pattern of coercive abuse.

The defendant has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. He claims all sexual encounters were consensual, and argues he only acted as an organizer to facilitate arrangements between his ex-wife and the men who contacted her. His defense lawyer, Martina Michaelsdotter Olsson, confirmed to SVT on the first day of the trial that her client rejects the entire narrative presented by prosecutors, saying he does not recognize the version of events outlined in the indictment.

Swedish law enforcement has to date identified 120 men who are alleged to have participated in the encounters at the farm. However, only 28 of these men have so far been formally charged in connection with the case. Most of the co-accused have denied the allegations against them, claiming either they never engaged in sexual activity with the victim or that no payment was exchanged. Prosecutors plan to corroborate their case with a range of evidence including online chat logs between the defendant and the accused men, financial transaction records of payments, and calendar entries the defendant kept to schedule encounters.

The case has drawn widespread international attention, with many observers drawing comparisons to the high-profile 2024 Pelicot trial in France, where Dominique Pelicot was convicted of drugging his own wife and allowing dozens of men to rape her over a nine-year period. To protect the victim’s privacy, the Swedish trial moved into a closed session immediately after the charges were read in court. The entire proceeding is scheduled to run for 14 days, with a verdict expected at the conclusion of proceedings.

Dutch law enforcement has taken to social media to urge unreported victims of a brutal, transnational sextortion ring to come forward, after a 22-year-old local man went on trial this week for orchestrating a campaign that left dozens of women and girls coerced into committing degrading, violent sexual acts on camera.

The suspect, identified only as Damian A. in line with Dutch privacy regulations, crafted a deceptive online persona posing as a teenage girl to lure targets on widely used social and messaging platforms. His MO followed a chilling pattern: he first convinced victims to share explicit personal photos, then leveraged that material as blackmail. Under threat to distribute the private images to the victims’ friends, family members, and classmates, he forced them to create increasingly graphic, sadistic content—including forced self-directed sexual abuse and orders to lick public toilet seats. Some victims were even coerced into writing or holding signs reading “Owned by Turpien”, the suspect’s reported online alias, effectively branding themselves in the imagery that would later be exploited for profit.

Damian A. was first taken into custody in January 2025, and his trial opened this week in the Dutch city of Dordrecht. Court documents confirm the suspect has confessed to the charges, which include counts of online sexual assault and online rape. Prosecutors have formally requested a nine-year prison sentence alongside court-mandated psychological treatment. In remarks reported by local Dutch media, Damian A. told the court, “I didn’t think about the consequences. That you can hurt people.” A final verdict from the court is expected within the coming weeks.

The international scale of the abuse only came to light after a group of young women in the United States reported their exploitation to authorities, sparking a cross-border investigation that led investigators to Damian A. One high-profile case in the Netherlands involved a schoolgirl who was ordered to skip class and send a nude photo to the suspect within 10 minutes, or face having her existing explicit images sent to all her classmates. Rotterdam Police’s Sexual Crimes Team has described the harm inflicted as catastrophic, with the suspect turning his victims’ daily lives into “a living hell.”

Beyond blackmail, Damian A. is alleged to have sold the abusive, explicit content on third-party platforms, extending the harm far beyond the initial coercion, and even shared the victims’ private personal data with other bad actors. To date, investigators have positively identified more than 50 victims across six countries: the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Germany, and Montenegro. But law enforcement stressed that this number is almost certainly a fraction of the true total, as many victims remain too afraid or ashamed to come forward.

Milou van der Kolk, a member of the Rotterdam Police Sexual Crimes Team, emphasized the urgency of the public appeal. “We are very worried because what these girls have had to endure is so extreme and so intense, and we know that there are more girls but we don’t know who they are,” she said.

The ongoing social media campaign by Dutch police serves three core goals: to identify additional unreported victims, to reassure existing survivors that the suspect is in custody and cannot contact them, and to encourage caregivers and parents to have open conversations with young people about the dangers of sharing intimate imagery online. All police posts include direct links and contact information for free, confidential victim support services.

Authorities explained that many victims of this type of online abuse grapple with overwhelming isolation, chronic stress, and feelings of hopelessness. Because the shame, fear, and despair caused by sextortion can be so debilitating, professional support is not just helpful—it can be life-saving. The case also highlights a growing, underrecognized threat: how a single offender with just a smartphone can exert total, terrifying control over young victims in the privacy of their own homes, turning everyday social media platforms into tools of intimidation, abuse, and exploitation while the adults in their lives remain completely unaware of the harm taking place.

Police have also issued a separate warning to any individual who purchased or shared the abusive content: all such material must be deleted immediately, as investigators have confirmed that a permanent digital trail exists to trace activity. The suspect’s actions are part of a sharply rising global trend of sextortion: in the Netherlands alone, police recorded roughly 3,000 sextortion cases in 2025, marking a 46% jump from the previous year.

Any individuals who have experienced online sexual abuse can access confidential support resources through the BBC Action Line.

PARIS – For art lovers and casual ticket buyers alike, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has arrived in France: a charity raffle offering Pablo Picasso’s original 1941 work “Tête de Femme” (Head of a Woman) as the grand prize, with every 100-euro ticket going directly to cutting-edge Alzheimer’s medical research.

The draw, scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday at Christie’s Paris auction house, marks the third iteration of the highly popular “1 Picasso for 100 euros” initiative, which first launched in 2013 to open access to world-class fine art while raising funds for good causes. The public will have a chance to preview the 1941 gouache-on-paper portrait a day early, when it goes on display starting Monday at Christie’s Paris galleries.

To ensure the initiative remains accessible and the prize holds its unique value, organizers have capped total ticket sales at 120,000. If all tickets are sold, the raffle will generate 12 million euros (approximately $14 million) in total revenue. Of that total, 1 million euros will go to Opera Gallery, the international art dealer that owns the portrait being offered. All remaining proceeds will be directed to Alzheimer’s research, overseen by the Alzheimer Research Foundation.

Based out of one of Paris’s top public hospitals, the Alzheimer Research Foundation has grown into France’s largest private funder of Alzheimer’s studies since its founding in 2004, a position that gives the charity unique impact in advancing treatments and understanding of the neurodegenerative disease.

The concept of raffling off Picasso’s work to reach a broad audience has strong backing from prominent members of the art collecting community. When the second raffle was held in 2020, billionaire art collector David Nahmad — who sold the 1921 Picasso still life “Nature Morte” for that draw — shared his support in a rare interview with the Associated Press, arguing the iconic Spanish artist would have wholeheartedly approved of the model. Nahmad noted that Picasso, who died in 1973, was famously generous with his work, gifting pieces to everyday workers like his driver and tailor rather than restricting access only to wealthy patrons. “He wanted his art to be collected by all kinds of people, not only by the super-rich,” Nahmad explained.

Past iterations of the raffle have delivered fairy-tale wins to ordinary art fans from across the globe. The 2013 inaugural event saw a fire sprinkler system worker from Pennsylvania take home Picasso’s 1914 Cubist-period work “Man in the Opera Hat.” The 2020 raffle of “Nature Morte” gave a sweet surprise to Claudia Borgogno, an Italian accountant: her son purchased the winning ticket as a Christmas gift, making her the new owner of the valuable still life.

Beyond bringing iconic art into the hands of everyday collectors, the first two raffles also delivered major global public good, raising more than 10 million euros combined. Those funds supported cultural preservation initiatives in Lebanon and clean water and hygiene programs across communities in Africa, proving the model’s ability to deliver widespread impact beyond its core mission.

An ongoing forensic excavation at the site of a defunct mother and baby home in Tuam, western County Galway, Ireland, has unearthed the remains of 36 additional infants, bringing the total number of recovered infant remains to 69, excavation officials confirmed in their latest project update.

The full excavation, launched by the Irish government last summer, follows years of investigation and public outcry over one of Ireland’s most harrowing historical scandals. The crisis first emerged in 2014, when amateur historian Catherine Corless published groundbreaking research showing that 796 children who died while residents at the Tuam home between 1925 and 1961 had no official death or burial records. The institution, which operated for 36 years to house unmarried mothers and their children, was run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a Catholic religious order. During the home’s operation, widespread malnutrition and inadequate healthcare led to hundreds of childhood deaths, with remains later found disposed of in an unmarked mass grave.

After an initial test excavation in 2017 confirmed the existence of the unmarked mass burial site, Irish authorities authorized a full forensic dig to recover remains, identify them through DNA matching, and return them to living relatives for formal, dignified burial. The excavation team, which releases progress updates every one to two months, published its sixth update this week, covering work conducted between January 29 and March 31, 2026.

In the new report, archaeologists detailed new findings about the burials: most of the recovered infants were interred in single white-painted coffins that have since decomposed over decades, while a small number of burials held two or three infants in a single coffin. Since the start of the excavation, 33 DNA samples have been collected from people who suspect they have relatives buried at the site, with five new samples added in the most recent reporting period. The excavation leadership has renewed its public appeal for any member of the public who may have family connections to the Tuam home to come forward and submit DNA samples to support identification efforts.

The Bon Secours Sisters issued a formal apology years ago, admitting that the children buried at the site were interred in a “disrespectful and unacceptable” manner, in keeping with the cruel systemic policies that stigmatized unmarried mothers and their children across mid-20th century Ireland. The full excavation is expected to continue for months as researchers work carefully to recover all remains and connect them to surviving family members.