Man involved in street fight with ASAP Rocky won't face charges, Swedish prosecutor says
As A$AP Rocky awaits his fate in a Swedish detention center, the Swedish prosecutor's office announced on Monday that one of the two men involved in a June 30 street fight with the rapper and his companions will not face charges.
The decision comes as a response to a "counter-investigation" or complaint filed by the American rapper's bodyguard against one of the two men.
The bodyguard, whose name has not been disclosed by prosecutors, was present during the fight but was not detained.
“The person who filed the counter-complaint repeatedly asks the other person to leave. When he refuses to leave, the other person first pushes him away and then takes a grip around the other persons neck and lifts him away a few meters. In this situation, the person throws his headphones on the notifier, and tries to hand out battles, which may be considered as self-defense," senior public prosecutor Daniel Suneson said in a statement.
Swedish prosecutors declined to provide the names of the two men involved in the fight with the rapper and his friends. A request for comment sent to the bodyguard’s Swedish attorney Frida Wallin was not immediately returned.
The interaction that the prosecutor appears to be referencing can be seen in one of two videos posted on A$AP Rocky's Instagram page on July 2 that appear to be shot before the fight broke out.
The videos appear to show A$AP Rocky and his three companions — his bodyguard and performers David Rispers and Bladimir Corniel — being followed by two other men, with one of the men swinging his headphones at the rapper’s bodyguard.
“Just for the cameras, we don’t want no problems with these boys,” A$AP Rocky can be heard saying in one of the videos, which runs nearly three minutes. In the video, the rapper and his friends can be heard repeatedly asking the men to stop following them.
“We don't know these guys and we didn't want trouble," he wrote in the caption beneath the posted video. "They followed us for four blocks.”
Following news of the rapper's arrest, the gossip website TMZ published a one-minute video on July 1 that appears to show A$AP Rocky and his companions kicking and punching the two men other men, but what preceded that brief video clip remains unclear.
The hip-hop star has now been detained for more than three weeks without any charges, along with Corniel and Rispers.
A$AP Rocky is expected to learn if he will face charges in a hearing scheduled for July 25 after a prosecutor requested more time on Thursday. His representatives are not expected to comment on the case until after the hearing.
The rapper's case has sparked outrage in the hip-hop community and Hollywood and even got the attention of President Donald Trump, who said on Friday that he was asked by "many" people, including first lady Melania Trump and hip-hop star Kanye West, to help the rapper.
Trump tweeted on Saturday that he spoke with Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Löfven about the case and he "assured me that American citizen A$AP Rocky will be treated fairly."
A$AP Rocky -- whose given name is Rakim Mayers -- is part of the hip-hop collective A$AP Mob, and was in Sweden as part of the European leg of his tour. He is "suspected of aggravated assault," according to the prosecutor's office.
But the rapper's Swedish attorney, Sloban Jovicic, told ABC News on Friday that he and his companions were acting in self-defense.
“You have to also see this from his point of view, he came to Sweden to perform for his fans and he was attacked, followed and harassed," Jovicic said. "My client begged and pleaded with these attackers to stop and he acted in self-defense. And now he is the one in jail. That’s unjust.”
ABC News' Aicha Hammar contributed to this report.
