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Rikard Sundén, also known as Johan Andersson, (born May 5, 1981) is a former heavy metal guitarist and a founding member of the Swedish metal band Sabaton. In 2021 he was convicted of sexually abusing an eight-year-old friend of his daughter and possession of child pornography.
Music career edit
Sundén was one of the founding members of Sabaton, a heavy metal band with a heavy focus on wars and significant battles. From 1999 until 2012, Sundén was one of the band's guitarists and a regular part of their lineup. He was part of the band for the release of the albums Metalizer, Primo Victoria, Attero Dominatus, The Art of War and Coat of Arms. However, in 2012 Sundén and most of the other founding members left the band and formed Civil War.
During Sundén's membership of Civil War, the band released three studio albums. Sundén was later one of the three former Sabaton members to join Sabaton for the Wacken Open Air show in 2019.
Criminal charges edit
On February 14, 2020, an eight-year-old friend of Sundén's daughter (referred to as NN3 by court documents) came over for a sleepover. During the night, Sundén snuck into the girl's room and groped her, believing her to still be asleep. When the girl started moving, he panicked and left the room. The girl complained to Sundén's wife Sigrid that she felt ill and asked to go home, but as it was the middle of the night she refused, not realising the situation. Several days later, the girl told a school friend about the incident. On learning of the incident, the girl's mother complained to the police.
Responding to the girl's claims, police arrested Sundén and seized two laptops and a mobile phone. Investigators discovered that Sundén had downloaded six videos of underage children. Sundén was charged with possession of child pornography and sexual abuse. As a result, he was kicked out of Civil War in February 2021. Sundén's wife Sigrid also left him. During his trial, he changed his name to Johan Andersson in order to protect his three children from the stigma of being related to him. He claimed that his victim had mistakenly identified his daughter as him during the night, that his bandmates had downloaded the files on his computer, and that he had believed the children on his phone to be over 18. Sundén was convicted on all counts and sentenced to nine months in prison.