On Thursday, Sweden’s justice minister accused Donald Trump of threatening a trade war in 2019 if he didn’t release rapper A$AP Rocky, who was arrested at the time for assaulting a fan.
The rapper, whose real name is Rakim Mayer, was arrested after he and some of his bodyguards beat a man they said was stalking them and hurling racial insults at them. A video of the event came out, showing the rapper and his crew beating a man. Police added that an eyewitness told them that either Rocky or one of his employees threw the bottle at the victim.
Rocky was arrested by the Swedish police and charged with assault. He was eventually found guilty of the attack, but his sentence was suspended and he was allowed to leave the country.
While Rocky was in custody following the arrest, Donald Trump, then President of the United States, continued to push Sweden to release the rapper.
Now speaking in a Swedish newspaper Niheter todayJustice Minister Morgan Johansson claimed that Trump was too insistent on Rocky’s release, so he warned the Swedish government that he could impose “trade restrictions” on Sweden if the rapper is not released.
Johansson insisted that the lesson to be learned was that nations should uphold their own principles.
“This story shows how important it is to uphold our legal principles and not ignore our democracy,” he said. “If you could try doing something like this against Sweden, what would you try to do in slightly weaker countries without the European Union behind them?”
The President used a variety of tactics to force Sweden to abandon its efforts to imprison Rocky. Rocky has many requests for his release. He even sent a special representative to Sweden to monitor the situation with Rocky.
Although the country formally withdrew from Trump’s public backlash, his case was expedited and Rocky was even allowed to leave the country pending a guilty verdict.
The case is also not as short as Swedish authorities think. The main accusation against Rocky is that he or a member of his team threw a glass bottle at the victim. However, a prosecution witness later retracted this claim.
Ultimately, when Rocky was released just 2 months after he was arrested and charged, Trump felt somewhat vindicated and tweeted “Come home soon” after hearing the verdict.
But the Attorney General’s statement on Trump’s threats is not entirely new. In August 2019, Trump reportedly warned of “adverse consequences” if Rocky’s case was not quickly dismissed.
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Source: Breitbart
