“Give A$AP Rocky his FREEDOM,” Trump wrote on Twitter, further inflaming the international incident that has grown out of the musician’s arrest this month. “We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem!”
Trump added that he was “very disappointed in Prime Minister Stefan Lofven for being unable to act.”
Rocky was charged Thursday with having committed an assault causing actual bodily harm June 30 in central Stockholm, Swedish prosecutors said in a statement, capping weeks of speculation about how the country would handle a street brawl that was captured, at least in part, on camera.
The rapper will remain in custody, at least until his trial begins Tuesday, the Swedish Prosecution Authority said in a statement.
The punishment for Rocky could include a fine based on his daily earnings or a maximum two years in prison, said Annika Collin, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Prosecution Authority.
The decision to charge Rocky, and Trump’s increasing ire over the charges, will sharpen the focus on a case that started as a fistfight, but has ballooned into much more, with Sweden facing accusations of racism and human rights abuses for its treatment of the rapper.
Rocky, 30, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, is accused of assaulting Mustafa Jafari in Stockholm after an altercation in the street that was captured on video. The rapper and two other men were detained on July 5 as prosecutors investigated the matter.
Slobodan Jovicic, Rocky’s lawyer, said in a telephone interview Thursday that the rapper acted in self-defense.
There was no response from the Swedish Embassy in Washington Thursday evening following Trump’s latest tweets. But Lofven’s office said in a statement Saturday that he would not intervene, and that “in Sweden everyone is equal before the law.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.