Stockholm, Sweden:
Swedish prosecutors mentioned Thursday they no longer suspected a lady of holding her son captive in their apartment for decades, saying he had not been held against his will.
Police had arrested the 70-year-old mother earlier this week, initially saying the 41-year-old man had been “locked up for a very long time” in their apartment in a southern Stockholm suburb.
Media reports quoted the man’s sister, who hadn’t noticed her brother in 20 years, as saying that the mother had pulled her son out of college when he was 12 and isolated him from the outdoors globe for 28 years.
The sister explained she had gone to the apartment on Sunday just after finding out the mother had been admitted to hospital.
She identified her brother undernourished with infected sores on his legs, virtually no teeth and laboured speech.
He was taken to hospital exactly where he underwent surgery. Doctors alerted police to the man’s situation.
The mother was initially detained on suspicion of illegal deprivation of liberty and causing grievous bodily harm, but was released on Wednesday.
Prosecutor Emma Olsson told AFP the lady was no longer a suspect, just after the investigation determined that the man had not been physically restrained from leaving the apartment.
“We haven’t found any indications that he has been locked up, tied up or physically prevented from leaving the scene. There are no indications that there have been locked spaces,” Olsson mentioned.
“The man himself has said that it was up to him if he wanted to leave the apartment,” she added.
“He’s an adult and could go out if he wanted,” she mentioned, adding that witnesses had noticed him outdoors on occasion.
She mentioned a healthcare examination had also shown no indicators of violence.
“He has no injuries that are consistent with violence. The sores are due to illness, sores that have become infected.”
Olsson mentioned social solutions had been investigating the case, in certain the reports about him becoming removed from college at a young age and isolated at dwelling.
Asked if that could be regarded a crime, Olsson mentioned that “in such a case the statute of limitations would have expired long ago.”
“One can question her suitability as a mother, but this is now up to social services to look into,” she mentioned.
“Society now needs to help this man, and this woman too. And make sure that we can prevent this kind of thing from happening again.”
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