https://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/pol...-og-imamlaerling-faar-foertidspension/9708480
A 62-year-old Iraqi citizen who in 2008 committed a violent double murder, despite his sentence, benefits from a full early pension of just under 20,000 kroner [$2900 USD] a month.
Ekstra Bladet can tell you today that a judgment in the Supreme Court from 16 February 2023 finally decided that he cannot be deported from Denmark, and at the same time revealed a loophole in the law:
If are imprisoned, public benefits are stopped. But psychiatric placement is medical treatment, and so the services continue as before. In the case of the Iraqi, he has been sentenced to psychiatric accommodation for an indefinite period.
‘Early pension cannot be paid while serving a sentence in prison or detention centre,’ writes the Ministry of Employment in a reply to the Folketing and continues:
‘The rules that the payment ceases, however, do not apply to citizens who are sent to serve a sentence in a place other than a prison or detention centre, for example when it is a sentence for treatment in a forensic psychiatric ward.’
Brutal double murder
It was back in 2008 that the Iraqi man committed the double murder of his ex-wife and his former father-in-law. He bumped into the two by chance in a hardware store in Hørsholm, while they were there with the couple’s two joint daughters.
Here he grabbed a knife from the shop and stabbed the two adults countless times in the stomach, neck and chest. The police quickly arrived at the scene, where the man was arrested.
In May 2009, he was sentenced to be placed in a psychiatric ward because he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, and was permanently deported from Denmark.
However, the deportation was annulled by the high court and then the Supreme Court, because the treatment options in Iraq are so poor that it is considered that it would be contrary to the human rights convention.
Early retirement and imam studies
The Supreme Court judgment shows that the Iraqi man’s ‘current support basis’ is early retirement.
It also shows that he reads to an imam via the internet and has up to 12 hours of unaccompanied outings every day, where he goes to Roskilde to collect bottles.
And it is completely within the scope that the man is training to be an imam. According to the ministry, people on early retirement may ‘happen to participate in education, courses, university stays and the like.’
However, if you take an education that enables you to support yourself, it can go beyond early retirement.
While the Iraqi convicted of murder receives early retirement, he does not have many expenses at the same time. Contrary to a prison sentence, you do not pay for board or lodging when you are under psychiatric treatment – even if it is a judge who has demanded it.
Depending on when he is discharged, he can probably leave the system with a solid savings.
Far from the only one
According to Ekstra Bladet’s information, the Iraqi double murderer is by no means the only convict who receives early retirement.
Because it has its own internal logic that if you are assessed to be so mentally ill that you cannot serve normal time, then you also have such a reduced ability to work that you can receive early retirement.
The rate for early retirement is DKK 19,360 per month.
A 62-year-old Iraqi citizen who in 2008 committed a violent double murder, despite his sentence, benefits from a full early pension of just under 20,000 kroner [$2900 USD] a month.
Ekstra Bladet can tell you today that a judgment in the Supreme Court from 16 February 2023 finally decided that he cannot be deported from Denmark, and at the same time revealed a loophole in the law:
If are imprisoned, public benefits are stopped. But psychiatric placement is medical treatment, and so the services continue as before. In the case of the Iraqi, he has been sentenced to psychiatric accommodation for an indefinite period.
‘Early pension cannot be paid while serving a sentence in prison or detention centre,’ writes the Ministry of Employment in a reply to the Folketing and continues:
‘The rules that the payment ceases, however, do not apply to citizens who are sent to serve a sentence in a place other than a prison or detention centre, for example when it is a sentence for treatment in a forensic psychiatric ward.’
Brutal double murder
It was back in 2008 that the Iraqi man committed the double murder of his ex-wife and his former father-in-law. He bumped into the two by chance in a hardware store in Hørsholm, while they were there with the couple’s two joint daughters.
Here he grabbed a knife from the shop and stabbed the two adults countless times in the stomach, neck and chest. The police quickly arrived at the scene, where the man was arrested.
In May 2009, he was sentenced to be placed in a psychiatric ward because he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, and was permanently deported from Denmark.
However, the deportation was annulled by the high court and then the Supreme Court, because the treatment options in Iraq are so poor that it is considered that it would be contrary to the human rights convention.
Early retirement and imam studies
The Supreme Court judgment shows that the Iraqi man’s ‘current support basis’ is early retirement.
It also shows that he reads to an imam via the internet and has up to 12 hours of unaccompanied outings every day, where he goes to Roskilde to collect bottles.
And it is completely within the scope that the man is training to be an imam. According to the ministry, people on early retirement may ‘happen to participate in education, courses, university stays and the like.’
However, if you take an education that enables you to support yourself, it can go beyond early retirement.
While the Iraqi convicted of murder receives early retirement, he does not have many expenses at the same time. Contrary to a prison sentence, you do not pay for board or lodging when you are under psychiatric treatment – even if it is a judge who has demanded it.
Depending on when he is discharged, he can probably leave the system with a solid savings.
Far from the only one
According to Ekstra Bladet’s information, the Iraqi double murderer is by no means the only convict who receives early retirement.
Because it has its own internal logic that if you are assessed to be so mentally ill that you cannot serve normal time, then you also have such a reduced ability to work that you can receive early retirement.
The rate for early retirement is DKK 19,360 per month.
