Sweden court finds US rapper A$AP Rocky guilty of assault

US rapper ASAP Rocky has been found guilty of assault in Sweden. The verdict was handed down today at Stockholm District Court.

The music star, whose real name is Rakim Athelaston Mayers, and his two friends, who were also found guilty of assault, were handed conditional sentences.

Mayers was not in court when the verdict was read.

The three, who were in the Swedish capital for a concert, “assaulted the victim by hitting and kicking him as he lay on the ground. The artist has also thrown the victim to the ground and stepped on his arm,” the court wrote in its verdict, rejecting the defence’s argument of self-defence.

The three were “not in a situation where they were entitled to self-defence”, the court said.

“In an overall assessment, the court finds that the assault has not been of such a serious nature that a prison sentence must be chosen. The defendants are therefore sentenced to conditional sentences”, the court said in a statement about Mayers’ friends.

In its verdict, the court said that Mayers and two members of his entourage’s actions were not severe enough to warrant more time in prison.

“The accused have no criminal record during the past five years… (and) there is no reason to fear that the accused are going to be repeat offenders,” it said.

The rapper Rakim Mayers was detained on 3 July and then charged with assault causing actual bodily harm in Stockholm during the 30 June street melee after the Real Street Festival in Anaheim.

The plaintiff, a Swedish resident born in Afghanistan, alleged he was attacked by Mayers and his entourage when he followed them to ask about a headphone set broken in an earlier scuffle with the rapper’s bodyguard.

Assault carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison in Sweden.

Mayers and two members of his entourage had pleaded not guilty to assaulting the 19-year-old Swede.