FILE PHOTO: Police is seen at the crime scene at Selma Lagerlofs square in Gothenburg after the famous rapper C. Gambino was shot to death on Tuesday evening in a parking garage in Gothenburg, Sweden on june 05, 2024. TT News Agency/Bjorn Larsson Rosvall via REUTERS/File Photo
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -A Swedish appeal court on Friday acquitted one man of accessory to the murder in 2024 of the rapper known by the alias C.Gambino.
The Swedish award-winning artist, who kept his identity hidden, was shot dead in a suspected gang-related attack in Gothenburg on the country's west coast.
A lower court had found Hassan Rabeie, 22, Vide Atterstam, 20, and Fatjam Vardari, 21, guilty of accessory to murder. It sentenced Rabeie to life imprisonment and the other two to 15 years and six months, and 12 years and six months, respectively.
The Court of Appeal for Western Sweden on Friday acquitted Vardari of the charge, while upholding the verdicts for the other two.
"The Court of Appeal, unlike the District Court, ruled that it had not been proven that he was involved in the murder in the way alleged by the prosecutors," the court said in a statement.
All three have denied all the charges against them.
Sweden has suffered from a wave of gang-related violence for more than a decade, though the homicide and manslaughter rate dropped last year.
The late rapper is not to be confused with U.S. artist Childish Gambino.
(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom, editing by Stine Jacobsen and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
