SUICIDE PACT

The Swedes are a curious people. They seem to combine a talent for beauty and a love of peace with a morbid fascination with death. One could be forgiven for believing that suicide is almost a way of life in Sweden. A classic example of a Swedish-style suicide concerns the sad case of a man and his girlfriend who had made a pact to die together after they discovered that ABBA were not planning to re-form in the near future (or some similar tragedy). Having found a pleasant location in which to die, near a popular tourist spot, the man, by agreement, strangled his girlfriend and then set about strangling himself. He discovered to his horror that this was not going to kill him and so he went looking for other means to end it all. Unfortunately, he soon realised that he had lost the courage to take his own life and instead handed himself over to the police. They had little choice but to charge him with murder, for which he eventually received an eight-year prison sentence - he appealed against it on the grounds that it was too lenient.

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