A mask found in the doctor's home and the inside of the bunker he built. Photos / Supplied
A mask found in the doctor's home and the inside of the bunker he built. Photos / Supplied
A doctor branded the 'Swedish Fritzl' has been sentenced to ten years in prison for abducting a woman and locking her in a homemade bunker, but was acquitted of aggravated rape.
In a unanimous verdict, Stockholm District Court said Martin Trenneborg meticulously planned the abduction over a long period of time and subjected the victim to serious risk by sedating her and keeping her caged up in a soundproof bunker for almost a week.
The 38-year-old doctor, who claimed he was suffering a mental disorder at the time, was ordered to pay 180,000 kronor (NZ$31,581) in damages to the woman.
He drove her 350 miles to his home near Kristianstad in southern Sweden where he locked her in a soundproofed cell.
The sexual nature of his crime coupled with his underground prison earned him the moniker of the Josef Fritzl of Scandinavia.
Police found traces of Rohypnol in the juice and champagne bottles and the glass in the victim's flat. Photo / Supplied
The original is currently serving life imprisonment in a maximum security Austrian psychiatric facility following his 2009 conviction for rape and murder following the incarceration of his own daughter, Elisabeth, in a cellar beneath his home for 24 years.
Trennenborg, who studied medicine at the prestigious Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, before working as a GP in Stockholm and Kristianstad, spent far less time tormenting his victim, but prosecutors say his crime was just as heinous.
Dr Trenneborg, who claims to be a member of the high-IQ club Mensa, admitted feeding his victim the strawberries laced with Rohypnol on September 12 last year, before driving her to his home in Skåne in southern Sweden and entombing her in the secret bunker.
Six days later, he walked into a police station in Stockholm along with the woman.
Police found a plastic full of drugs, syringes and condoms in the doctor's home. Photo / Supplied
Prosecutors say he returned to the capital to collect some of her belongings.
But when he discovered police were looking for her and had changed the locks on her apartment, he decided to pretend they were a couple and everything had been a misunderstanding.
But police became suspicious, interviewed her away from him and he was arrested shortly afterwards.
Prosecutors alleged that he had sex with her while she was unconscious.
Prosecutor Peter Claeson said his plan was clearly to keep the victim locked up for 'a long time' in the bunker, which was about 60 square metres in size, sound and light-proof.
It is also alleged that he took blood samples from the woman while she was in captivity to check them at the clinic where he worked to ensure she did not have any sexually transmitted diseases.
The swabs were allegedly logged as belonging to an "unidentified refugee".
How he came to know the woman or choose her for his macabre dungeon, is unclear.
The bunker in which police believe the doctor planned to hold the woman prisoner for years. Photo / Supplied
According to a Swedish newspaper, they spoke for the first time on the telephone on September 10 last year and two days later he turned up to her flat.
Trenneborg admits drugging the woman and taking her away, but denied rape.
He also wanted his lawyer to get the kidnapping indictment reduced to a less serious charge of "deprivation of liberty".
His lawyer, Mari Schaub, described him as a lonely "sad and depressed person" who wanted a partner and did not intend to hurt anyone.
It was a defence reminiscent of the plot of the John Fowles book The Collector, about a socially awkward man who kidnaps a woman to confine her in a pathetic bid to make her fall in love with him.
The masks were stashed in a brown paper bag. Photo / Supplied
Mrs Schaub said: "He is a man who was mentally depressed and, when at the police station, complied with all the requests of the police. He is very much in regret of what he has done."
When police searched the bunker they found an Ikea pine bed, a desk and a kitchen area with sink, hot plate and a fridge stocked with fresh produce.
