Three jailed over murder of Swedish hip-hop star C Gambino

Three men in their 20s have been given long jail terms for their part in the fatal shooting of award-winning hip-hop artist C Gambino in Gothenburg last year.

C Gambino, whose real name was Karar Ramadan, had been named hip-hop artist of 2023 in Sweden’s Grammis music awards a month before he was murdered, in what prosecutors described as a ruthless and premeditated shooting.

All three men were convicted of aiding and abetting murder, and two of them were cleared of murder, as the Gothenburg court ruled it could not be established beyond reasonable doubt who had fired the fatal shots.

The gun that killed C Gambino has never been found and a car used in the shooting was later found burned out.

C Gambino’s murder has been linked to a local gangland conflict, although the motive remains a mystery. Prosecutors said there was no evidence to suggest that he was part of any criminal network.

For several years Sweden’s biggest cities have been beset by gang violence that have claimed dozens of lives, often involving children recruited to carry out violent attacks.

The rapper, who was 26, was shot at a multistorey car park in Gothenburg in June 2024 in what the court said was a carefully planned attack and had the character of a “pure execution”.

Investigators were unable to find DNA traces of the attackers but did map their movements from mobile phones around the time of the shooting.

The prosecutor also told Swedish public broadcaster SVT that police had been able to use hours of CCTV footage from the car park and elsewhere.

Videos showed the killers’ vehicle entering the car park more than a week before the shooting, and then waiting for hours before the attack took place as C Gambino returned home from the gym late in the evening.

Although he was able to raise the alarm, emergency services who arrived at the scene were unable to use their communication system and had to shout to each other, SVT reported.

The artist died in hospital about an hour afterwards.

In its verdict, the court gave a 22-year-old man a life sentence in jail, while two others aged 21 and 20 were handed terms of 15 and a half years and 12 and a half years respectively,

A fourth man, aged 19, was convicted of setting fire to their car.

Another gang-related case concluded on Wednesday with a 14-year-old boy found guilty of shooting dead a man in his home on the order of one of Sweden’s most notorious gangs, Foxtrot.

Two other boys were convicted: one for conspiracy and another for preparing the murder in Skurup in southern Sweden. None of the three will face punishment because they are below the age of criminal responsibility, which is 15 in Sweden.

The victim of the Skurup murder was targeted because his son had refused to carry out an attack for the Foxtrot gang.

Police in Iraqi Kurdistan have meanwhile arrested a key figure in the Foxtrot gang, according to Swedish radio.

The suspect is described as close to gang leader Rawa Majid and has been linked to a number of killings in Sweden, including the Skurup shooting.