Rapper A$AP Rocky was arrested last week in Stockholm, Sweden following a street brawl that he was allegedly involved in, Pitchfork reports.
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A video shared by TMZ shows the rapper and three men attacking two other men.
Rocky’s lawyer Henrik Olsson Lilja has said his client’s actions were in self-defence.
Rocky later shared two videos on Instagram, alleging that two young men had been following him prior to the incident.
The men appear to claim that Rocky’s group broke their headphones.
“I’M INNOCENT,” Rocky wrote in the comments.
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He is now being held for two weeks while law enforcement investigate the attack and decide whether or not to charge him with assault. If convicted, he faces up to six years in prison.
TMZ reports that there is a treaty called the Vienna Convention for Consular Relations, which both Sweden and the United States signed, which states that when a foreigner like Rocky is arrested, he has the right to an immediate visit from an official from the U.S. Consulate.
Rocky reportedly requested a meeting with someone from the American Consulate but when the agent arrived at the prison, he was not allowed to meet with the rapper. The U.S. official reportedly believes he was denied access because Swedish officials did not want him to see the living conditions within the facility.
There is said to be a prisoner in the next cell with severe mental issues who slams his head against the concrete wall and throws feces across the prison that are not cleaned up.
It has been alleged that the water is not drinkable and for the first five days of his imprisonment, he was forced to eat only an apple a day as the other food was inedible.
“The conditions of the facility are horrific,” the source says. “Some of the inhumane conditions Rocky and his colleagues are facing at the Stockholm Detention Center include 24/7 solitary confinement, restriction of amenities for the most basic of human functions, access to palatable and life-sustaining food as well as unsanitary conditions.”
“Rocky is now being detained for an unknown period of time until they have a trial and he is having his legal and basic human rights ignored while being forced to live in inhumane conditions — all for acting in self-defense,” the source alleges.
Rocky’s team continued to fight for a U.S. official to visit him and he was eventually allowed to see him two days later, but only in the presence and earshot of two Swedish guards, which is believed to be “a clear intimidation tactic.”
The official from the U.S. Embassy told A$AP’s team that, “Walking into that place was like walking into a toilet.”
Fredrik Wallin, the governor of the prison where A$AP Rocky is being held, refutes the description of the facility put forth in the TMZ report.
“The Swedish Prison and Probation Service has a policy not to comment on individual cases or prisoners,” Wallin tells PEOPLE. “However, we can refute the picture of prison Kronoberg which is described in the article in TMZ. To exemplify, prison staff and prisoners drink the same municipal tap water.”
Additionally, a Department of State official tells PEOPLE that “we are aware of the arrest of a U.S. citizen in Stockholm. We take seriously our responsibility to assist U.S. citizens abroad and are actively monitoring the situation. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment at this time.”
Rocky’s team is trying to get the State Department involved to have him released but so far, the courts have denied their requests.
