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QUOTES FROM THE BOOK

“The Alexandra Man” is a book that hurts. It tells a story of the reality of many young girls and it shows the enormous vulnerability and exploitation within which they live.”

(From foreword by Martin Jonsson, media analyst and editor-in-chief for Svenska Dagbladet’s Finance section)

“It was very hard to answer questions like ‘what is sexual intercourse?’ and having to use their proper words like penis and vagina. Completely unrealistic. Eventually I found myself worried about coming across as sounding vulgar and making a fool of myself.”

(P. regarding the trial process)

“For the first time in my life I witnessed somebody making out with a girl on a park bench. I thought to myself: ‘where have I ended up?’ I was under the impression that in Sweden anyone can screw wherever they want to. There seemed to be no taboos whatsoever.”

(Atheer Al Suhairy,”The Alexandra Man”, explaining his encounter with the Swedish society and culture)

“I thought it would turn out like Pretty Woman”.

(A girl explaining why she met and, in exchange for money, had sex with Atheer Al Suhairy)

“That these young girls endured several police interrogations without having an attorney present, that they had a lawyer at hand only when the actual trial began, and that only one lawyer represented over twenty girls is an absolute legal travesty. The responsibility lies with the police, public prosecutor and court of law.”

(From closing statements by Claes Borgstrom, attorney and Equal Opportunity Ombudsman between 2000 and 2007)

CHAPTER EXCERPTS March 15, 2005

It is a few minutes before 7 a.m. on March 15, 2005 when Atheer Al Suhairy is awakened by uniformed policemen breaking down the door to his apartment. They surround him in his bed with their weapons drawn. At first he thinks it is some kind of joke, but when they force him down on the floor and handcuff him he realizes it is serious. He is told he is being taken to the police station. In an adjacent room Atheer Al Suhairy’s companion is asleep. He is also awakened and together they are brought to the police station on Porslinsgatan in Malmo. Atheer Al Suhairy is under investigation, and his companion is about to be questioned in regards to the allegations. For more than six weeks, ever since Atheer Al Suhairy was first accused of rape January 28, police investigators have mapped out the life of Al Suhairy. The accusers are thirteen and fourteen years of age. The investigation reveals that Atheer Al Suhairy recently started an internet café on Ostra Forstadsgatan in Malmo together with his roommate and companion. It further reveals that Al Suhairy also runs a computer business, headquartered on Norra Vallgatan. The same morning the arrests are made, some ten policemen search the offices of Al Suhairy, as well as his home on Lugna Gatan and the two cars registered to Atheer Al Suhairy’s third business, IT-ambulance. The police confiscate, among other things, several computers belonging to Al Suhairy and his companion, as well as mobile phones, post-it notes with girls’ names and phone numbers, a dildo, a vibrator and several other sex-toys.

An hour or so after his arrest, Atheer Al Suhairy is sitting in an interrogation room across the table from detective superintendent Kjell-Ake Wendt of Malmo Police’s family violence unit. Present is also a prosecutor.

- The accused agreed to conduct the first interrogation without the presence of a lawyer, says Kjell-Ake Wendt.

During the interrogation, the detective superintendent describes the allegations directed toward Al Suhairy; that he allegedly sexually assaulted the 14-year old girl at his office in November 2004, and that he forced the 13-year old to engage in sexual intercourse at his home on Lugna Gatan December 17 the same year. The interrogation lasts only 35 minutes. The accused denies all allegations. 

J.

“When we arrived at his place we sat down in the kitchen, I believe. He started to talk about how much sex we were going to have. What I was going to do and what he was going to pay me. It was like a sick joke, sitting talking about getting paid. “This is what a prostitute does, exchanging sex for money” I thought to myself. I didn’t want to do anything at all, but I had traveled this far so I felt like I really had to do something. He nagged and nagged and nagged and nagged. He told me I wouldn’t get paid unless I did what he wanted. He was obsessed with anal sex. He wanted to take pictures of us engaging in anal sex and to convince me he showed me a number of other girls on his computer who had agreed to it. He told me he would only penetrate half an inch, and if it hurt he promised to stop. He had a number of files on his computer containing images of other girls. His entire damned computer was full of anal sex. I said “never in my life” but he replied: “does that mean ‘never’ never in my life, or does it mean ‘maybe’ never in my life?” We remained there talking about it for some 40 minutes. We watched a little TV and then went to bed. I laid down on the left side of the bed. He started to caress me and tried to get me going. We had sex one time and then I pretended to be asleep. The next morning he left for work at around 8 a.m. and returned at around noon. I remained in bed, staring at the ceiling, wanting the hours to fly by so I could go back home again. /…/

That evening I wanted to go out to eat and be around people. The plan was to not be alone at home with him. But he strongly refused. He made chicken and curry. He also had a lot of alcohol, and I drank quite a bit. Then he began the nagging again. Sex or no money he told me. He wanted to decide how many times we were going to have sex. We had this discussion prior to dinner. Eventually I agreed to what he wanted. I just didn’t have the energy to stand up to him anymore. He told me we would have sex once before dinner, once after, once later in the evening and one more time in the morning. Or else he wouldn’t give me any money. I really felt forced to do it. When we were going to do it after dinner I hurt so badly I couldn’t handle it. I told him I couldn’t do it again. He led me to the bedroom, undressed me and told me to just lie still until he had achieved orgasm. I didn’t resist, I just had to endure it. I could only blame myself for having traveled there in the first place. On one occasion he put his arms around my head. He was pretty rough. At some point he also roughly grabbed my hair. I don’t know why he did it, perhaps he was turned on by doing this. After each sexual act I took a shower. I felt disgusting. That night I felt tattered and torn, it was awful. I felt I couldn’t do it anymore, it just hurt so badly. I woke up the next morning with him being inside of me.

CEOP Centre

As early as the end of the 1990s Jim Gamble made contact with adults who use the internet to exploit children and adolescents with the sole purpose of engaging in sexual activities. Gamble is the Chief Executive of the CEOP Centre – Child Exploitation Online Protection – in Great Britain and he is one of the leading authorities in Europe in the fight to protect children from online predators. The centre consists of personnel from the police, social sector, IT-industry and various organizations fighting for the rights of children. Great Britain is one of the leading countries in the world when it comes to the fight against “grooming”, and in 2003 legislation was passed that outlaws this behavior. Just as important was the foundation of the CEOP Centre which has, up to date, trained and educated close to one million school children in how to protect themselves from online predators.

/…/

Nobody would tolerate a grown-up man approaching a teen-age girl on the street, asking her to pull her shirt up because he wants to see her breasts. And what we don’t accept in the real world, we shouldn’t allow in the virtual world, says Jim Gamble.

/…/

CEOP Centre has one division which works solely with educational information. Hannah Bricks has been part of this since its inception. She tells of her work:

/…/

“When we first began our operation the programs were geared toward children and adolescents, but the more we worked with this, the more we realized the importance of teaching parents and adults as well. The gap between what children do on the net, and what parents and other adults are aware of, is enormous. We see a fear in the eyes of the parents, a fear of accepting and learning a new technique and a fear of understanding the public and social life that takes place online. We also notice that many of them are embarrassed about their lack of knowledge. They don’t want to feel silly in front of their children or students. Because of this we have partially changed directions and today we focus just as much on adults. We guide them through chat rooms and other online meeting places, introduce them to the most popular online sites and show them how they work. We want the adults to become engaged in their children’s activities and learn what the kids do online. The kids have computers in their rooms and most parents believe that they sit in front of them and study, safe from the outside world. At least they are not out running around. In reality the child may be on the computer at 2 or 3 in the morning, chatting with strangers online, with his or her webcam turned on. Due to this we are approaching parents in collaboration with an organization called Childnet International. Here the parents acquire basic knowledge. We arrange meetings for parents in conjunction with already having met the children. During these meetings we teach them about the internet. It is hard to reach parents. For many of them it is given to communicate with the school and teachers when the children are young, but as soon as they reach higher grade levels, the communication between parents and teachers subside. We show our movies to the adults. It hits many of them hard when they find out the risks their children are exposed to. A lot of them are shocked. This is why the people that are in charge of these meetings need to be educated by our qualified personnel, to make sure they have the relevant information and background knowledge to deal with these situations. They must come prepared for strong reactions by these parents. Many schools approach us; teachers are concerned with being able to support their students. For example, a problem may arise between two students that originated on a particular online site and the school staff might not know how to tackle the problem. In that case they call us asking for help and guidance. We also seek out social workers. They are often able to become very close to children and students, but they, just like the majority of adults, are unaware of what takes place online. However, as soon as they understand and grasp the depth of what happens on the internet, they are more than willing to enhance their knowledge in order to better help the children. We have even visited police academies. Grooming is not yet part of their basic education and I don’t know why. I think it ought to be. It goes without saying that the police should have the proper knowledge in regards to this ever growing danger.”