SWEDEN: Trans-Identifying Egyptian Migrant Who Murdered His Children Accused of Sexually Harassing Female Inmates in Women’s Prison

A father who murdered his two young children and was transferred to a women’s prison after beginning to identify as transgender has been accused of sexually harassing female inmates while authorities look the other way. Paulus Said Foukaih Abdelshahed, an Egyptian national, was transferred to a women’s prison after changing his name to “Lily,” where he is serving a life sentence for the killings.

On April 23, 2024, police and ambulances services were dispatched to Abdelshahed’s residence in response to a call that he had made. Abdelshahed told emergency services that his two children – a boy and a girl, both under the age of 10 – were not breathing, according to a criminal indictment lodged in November that year.

When officers arrived at the residence, they found both children dead. Court documents and subsequent reporting state that prosecutors determined Abdelshahed had placed bags over each child’s head and pumped helium into the bags through a hose, depriving them of oxygen. The prosecution described the killings as intentional, carefully planned, and particularly ruthless. Investigators recovered items from the home consistent with this method, including bags, tape, and gas-related equipment.

Before the murders, for example, Paul Abdelshahed had Googled “killed his own children,” “die together” and searched for “the most gentle way to kill someone.”

Abdelshahed admitted to killing the children during the investigation, and admission prosecutors cited alongside forensic findings and other physical evidence. A psychological examination ultimately concluded that Abdelshahed did not suffer from a serious mental disorder of the kind that would justify sentencing him to compulsory psychiatric care rather than prison.

In December 2024, the Södertälje District Court convicted him on both counts and sentenced him to life imprisonment and deportation in the event he was ever released. Abdelshahed quickly appealed the verdict, arguing that the court should have imposed psychiatric care rather than a life sentence. However, his appeal was quashed by the Svea Court of Appeal in February 2025.

Yet during this process, Abdelshahed had applied to change his sex marker on official identification documents, and legally changed his name to “Lily”. As a result, it was discovered he had been transferred from Tidaholm men’s prison into a women’s prison in Ystad (Ystadsanstalten) some time near the end of 2025.

Abdelshahed began crossdressing publicly in 2023, when he would go to his job at Scania in Södertälje dressed up as “Lily”. On some occasions, he would also wear a wig and women’s clothes when picking up his children from school.

During police questioning that followed his initial arrest, Abdelshahed appeared to blame his “gender dysphoria” for the murders of his two children. “I was born in the wrong body… If I were born Lily, I would be happy and still have my children… [and] live my life as it is,” he told authorities.

New reports tell of how Abdelshahed has been accused of continuous sexual harassment by multiple female inmates at the women’s prison where he is being held. Correctional officers employed at Ystad and six inmates came forward to tell Expressen of the ongoing “inappropriate behavior”, which includes Abdelshahed exposing himself to the women there.

According to the report, Abdelshahed walks around the facility while wearing a short night gown without underwear, with his penis exposed. “[He doesn’t] wear underwear, like the rest of us do. When I and others have told the staff, we are told that we are LGBTQI-hostile,” said a woman who was recently incarcerated at Ystad.

One woman who suffers from PTSD after surviving a sexual assault has had a panic attack after seeing Abdelshahed leave his room wearing nothing but a short night gown. Despite this, she was the one reprimanded by staff for inappropriate behavior, not Abdelshahed.

Another inmate explained that Abdelshahed repeatedly slaps her on the rear. “He has told me that he likes women, which makes me even more uncomfortable,” she said.

Still another inmate says that he has tried to enter the shower room — an area which can’t be locked — while other female inmates were showering on several occasions. She described the situation as a “horror scenario”, and said that he has walked in on her as she did her laundry there just to expose his penis to her: “The shower room also serves as a laundry room and Lily deliberately goes there when I’m washing, just to show [himself] naked,” the woman said.

Other inmates also describe how Abdelshahed invites younger women to his room on the premise of applying their makeup. Staff who came forward to Expressen reported feeling confused about how to handle the situation, and fear of retaliation from management for voicing concerns.

Additionally, reports of sexual harassment have been filed against Abdelshahed with both the police and the Ombudsman, but the cases have been dropped. According to Chief Safety Officer Jimmy Nyberg, female inmates “feel that their experiences of the challenges are not taken seriously by management.”

Investigators recovered this image of Paul Abdelshahed from his computer in 2023.

Abdelshahed is said to have initially lied to the female inmates about the reason for his incarceration. He reportedly told them he was only going to be held at the women’s prison for one year. Female inmates discovered the truth of his life sentence only after seeing a news segment about him on television.

“There was an entire correctional force for Lily’s department. They guarded him from other inmates until he was allowed to move out to a special ward in eight places and since then he has been there,” one woman said.

Inmates also described how Abdelshahed would wear makeup when he first arrived, but has now given up on applying cosmetics. “You can see without any problems that it is a man,” a correctional officer said.

The director of the women’s prison at Ystad, Anders Jansson said: ”There is nothing in our regulations that specifies how we should handle these cases. We have determined that this person is a woman. [Abdelshahed] is a woman, and if you have a female personal identity number, you’re going to be placed in a women’s prison.”

Sweden’s Legal Gender Recognition Act (Könstillhörighetslagen) officially came into force on July 1, 2025. The legislation streamlined the process for changing sex-identifiers on legal documents, without a requirement for surgical intervention. Previously, under a law passed in 1972, legal sex changes required approval from the Legal Advisory Council of the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen), as well as a formal psychiatric diagnosis of transsexualism, or gender dysphoria. Under the new process, an applicant needs only a healthcare statement confirming an experience of “gender identity”, with no formal psychiatric diagnosis required.

Late last year, a trans-identified male and convicted pedophile was arrested as the prime suspect in the brutal murder of a young woman in the residential area of Rönninge, Sweden. Robin Andersson, who recently began calling himself “Vilma,” was arrested on December 30 and detained under suspicion of murder and the gross desecration of a corpse.

Andersson had previously attempted to kidnap a 10-year-old girl in 2019 and was found in possession of over 42,000 files depicting child sexual abuse and graphic images of female corpses. Andersson had targeted the girl while wearing a black mask, and equipped with zip ties and duct tape, attempted to force the girl into his car. The child managed to escape, and during court proceedings Andersson described his predatory behavior as a “cry for help.”

While under suspicion for the attempted abduction, a forensic investigation uncovered the significant quantity of graphic content in Andersson’s possession, which included both depictions of dead women and child sexual abuse.

The female corpses were also dismembered, as they were photographs from autopsy examinations. The convicted pedophile was also reportedly searching specifically for autopsy images of female genitalia.

Andersson’s internet search history showed that he was looking for information about drugging girls and disposing of their corpses. Investigators were able to track down certain internet searches he had made, such as: “Make someone unconscious,” “chloroform,” and searches for dead female bodies.

A forensic psychiatric examination conducted at the time determined that one of Andersson’s driving forces behind the attempted abduction was his “sexual interest in children and death,” adding that he “does not believe that the plaintiff has been harmed by the act and states that it is not clear that the children depicted in the abuse material feel bad about it.”

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