Swedish doctor jailed for holding woman captive in bunker

Stockholm: A Swedish court on Tuesday sentenced a doctor to 10 years in prison for drugging and kidnapping a woman, meticulously planning her abduction in the hopes of keeping her in a specially-built bunker for years.

The 38-year-old general practitioner has been compared to Josef Fritzl, the Austrian father who held his daughter captive for 24 years and raped her repeatedly in a basement.

The Swede passed himself off as an American when he met the woman for the first time on September 10 at her Stockholm apartment, after making initial contact online for a date.

Two days later, he returned to her place with champagne, strawberries and fruit juice laced with sedatives. Once she was unconscious, he rolled her in a wheelchair to his car which had fake license plates. He then drove 550 kilometres (340 miles) from Stockholm to his home near Kristianstad in southern Sweden, where he had a good reputation as a general practitioner.

He then locked the woman into what the prosecution described as an above-ground "bunker" he had built in his yard, which resembled a garden shed from the outside.

But it was soundproofed, outfitted with a toilet and bed, and had two thick doors, opened in sequence with electronic locks.

"The doctor planned his crime meticulously and over a long period. In addition he put the victim at serious risk by drugging her and holding her in very uncomfortable conditions in this isolated bunker," the court said.

The man had also been charged with rape, but the charge was rejected for lack of evidence.

The man held the woman in the bunker for six days. With the woman detained, the man returned to Stockholm where he learned that police were searching for her.

He then decided to drive the woman to a police station in central Stockholm to assure authorities that she was safe, but police became suspicious and arrested him.

Photo: The Independent