Christian Zedig was 32. He was a police officer in Sweden, a husband and the father of two daughters. This summer he was in Copenhagen, watching a World Cup match. Three days later he was dead.
The man who hit him is 31. He is of African origin, came to the country as an infant and holds a Danish passport. In 2014 he was convicted of aggravated assault and rape. In 2017 he got seven years for attempted murder at a nightclub. The week before the verdict in Christian's case, he was convicted of assaulting a fellow inmate. That night he climbed onto a bench, threw two beer cans at a group of football fans, and punched Christian in the neck.
The sentence was one year. Simple assault.
Excuse me, what?
He was convicted of simple assault, not of killing. The court stressed that he acted aggressively, that he has prior convictions for serious violent crime, and that Christian died. It still came to one year. How many times does a man have to show what his hands can do before it counts? He has already stood in court for attempted murder. He knows what a punch can do.
I see the pattern again and again. There is time, understanding and lenient statutes for the one who strikes. The ones left behind are told that the law, sadly, allows no more. The hand is held over those who do harm. The bill goes to the family.
What on earth is going on? It is beyond me how Europe is undermining itself and its own people. Our governments express regret when tragedy strikes, because people are attacked, raped and killed again and again by immigrants from non-Western countries. And then nothing happens. We cannot count on them. They say one thing and stab us in the back, taking more and more of our justice, freedom and rights. And we put up with it.
It has to stop. And it only stops when more healthy-minded people begin to stand up and say: enough is enough.
Citizenship is not a life insurance policy. A man who answers with violence over and over has broken the deal himself. He should not be allowed to stay in a country he refuses to live peacefully in. That takes a change in the law. So write it.
Christian's father has written to danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. He wants to look her in the eye and get an answer on how 12 months can be the price of a killing. He writes that he is waiting for her to find the courage to respond. He says his son's death must not be in vain, and that his family now has to serve a kind of life sentence of its own.
The prime minister has agreed to the meeting and calls one year for taking another person's life unacceptable. She is right. But words after the verdict cost nothing. What costs something is writing a law that also hits the next man with a past like this one. It cannot bring Christian back, but it can make sure there are fewer like him.
One year for a life. That is not justice, and everyone knows it.
Christian's two daughters will never get their father back. The man who took him will get his freedom back.
The day someone explains to me how that adds up, they can do it face to face with those two girls. Until then, there is nothing more to say. Nothing!