A Swedish doctor has been charged with rape and kidnapping after he confessed to drugging a woman with sedative-laced strawberries and locking her up in a soundproof bunker where he had intended to keep her for years, prosecutors said Monday. The 38-year-old man's defense lawyer described the case as an elaborate plot to find a girlfriend, which unraveled as he walked into a police station with the woman on Sept. 18 last year, allegedly to show police that she was fine. Defense lawyer Mari Schaub said her client has confessed to all allegations except rape, but wants the kidnapping charge reduced to a lower charge of deprivation of liberty. According to the indictment, the defendant built a concrete "bunker" inside what was meant to look like a machine shed next to his countryside home in southern Sweden, and first allegedly made contact with the victim by phone and met her once before he abducted her in Stockholm on Sept. 12 after careful preparations.
The woman passed out after he allegedly gave her chocolate-coated strawberries laced with Rohypnol. Prosecutors say he had sex with her while she was unconscious, drove her to his home, and locked the woman inside the bunker (except for brief shower excursions) until Sept. 18. He is also accused of buying two rubber masks "featuring an older man and older woman" to avoid being recognized. He allegedly told the woman he intended to have unprotected sex with her and took blood samples and vaginal samples to check whether she had any diseases. He said he wanted to keep her there for years and that he planned to lock up other people, too, the indictment says, but the plot began falling apart when he returned to the woman's apartment on Sept. 17 to fetch some of her belongings and found out that police were searching for the woman. Click for the full, bizarre story. (More rape stories.)