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Bullet sent to Sweden’s finance minister

A letter with a .22-calibre bullet arrived at the offices of Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg on Thursday courtesy of a leftist extremist group angered by bonuses paid to executives at state-owned companies.

Published: 20 March 2009 10:11 CET
Bullet sent to Sweden's finance minister

“The bonus system costs hundreds of millions – a bullet in the neck is just a few kronor,” the letter stated, according to the website of the Revolutionära Front (‘Revolutionary Front’), which claimed responsibility for the correspondence.

The group published news of the letter on its website on March 10th, a full nine days before it reached the finance minister, according to the Politikerbloggen politics website.

According to Politikerbloggen, the envelope had not been x-rayed beforehand, as is standard practice for all letters and packages sent to Swedish ministers and government office employees.

In the letter to Borg, the group took issue with what it argued was the finance minister’s hypocritical approach to bonuses.

While the finance minister had spoken out against bonuses paid to the upper management of Sweden’s banks, he didn’t according to the Revolutionära Front “raise his voice about how the government last summer raised the bonuses for executives of state-owned companies”.

Specifically, the group expressed anger over higher bonuses for leaders of the country’s AP pension funds, which are charged with managing Swedes’ public pensions.

“The case of the AP funds is just like that of Volvo or Ericsson when the highest executives take home bonuses worth millions at the same they plan layoffs for tens of thousands of workers,” the Revolutionära Front said on its website.

The group explained that the letter was meant to “help our dear finance minister” out of a “slightly embarrassing situation” and that the bullet could help Borg “start the first purge free of charge”.

According to the Revolutionära Front, Borg was to use the bullet to shoot the head of one of the AP pension funds in order to “take back” his bonus and “symbolically return it to the country’s pensioners”.

A spokesperson for Sweden’s security police, Säpo, refused to comment on whether the letter was considered a threat against the finance minister.

“We don’t comment on the threats against those whom we protect and therefore don’t have any comment on this information either,” Säpo spokesperson Anders Tagesson told Politikerbloggen.

EVACUATION

Update: City halls across Germany evacuated after receiving bomb threats

Several city halls in Germany were evacuated on Tuesday over emails threatening bomb attacks, police said.

Published: 26 March 2019 09:32 CET
Updated: 26 March 2019 16:10 CET
Update: City halls across Germany evacuated after receiving bomb threats
Police blocked off the town hall square in Augsburg after a bomb threat. Photo: DPA

Augsburg, Kaiserslautern, Chemnitz, Göttingen, Neunkirchen and Rendsburg were affected, reported Focus Online. The sender of the threats remains unidentified.

The city hall in Augsburg, Bavaria, was evacuated and closed on Tuesday morning. The town hall square was also cordoned off, reported the Augsburger Allgemeine. Around 500 employees were sent home, the newspaper said.

According to police reports, a bomb threat had been received by mail that night. From about 8am to shortly after midday a large-scale operation was in progress.

There was also disruption to public transport due to the incident.

After the search was completed police said no suspicious objects were found. However, Augsburg's Mayor Kurt Gribl said it was right to evacuate and close off the area.

“The contents of the mail had to be taken seriously,” said Gribl in a statement.

The town hall in Göttingen, Lower Saxony was also evacuated and cordoned off early on Tuesday morning. According to the police, a bomb threat was received, reported the Göttinger Tageblatt. Special forces were on site and residents were urged to avoid the area.

Police also tweeted about the incident and said public transport in the area would also be diverted.

A similar report came to light in the Saxon city of Chemnitz. Police were investigating the town hall, reported Radio Chemnitz. That building was also cordoned off.

In Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate, threatening mail was also received, a police spokesman said this morning, reported Stern.Task forces were also on site with sniffer dogs. The area around the town hall had been cordoned off. However, there is currently no concrete threat, the spokesman said. The measures were being carried out as a precaution.

 “Around 1:30am, threatening mail arrived at the town hall during the night, a police spokesman in Kaiserslautern told Focus Online. “It was discovered by an employee at about 8 am.”

Threats were also reported in other German cities.

Saarländischer Rundfunk said sniffer dogs were being used at the town hall in Neunkirchen It was thought to be in connection with a threatening email.

in Rendsburg, Schleswig-Holstein, a police spokesman told Focus that an e-mail with a bomb threat had arrived at the town hall during the night. The building was evacuated in the early hours of the morning, and employees were denied access.

The latest scare came after more than 100 threatening emails were apparently sent by far-right sympathizers to lawyers, politicians, journalists and even a pop star.

SEE ALSO: Probe underway after far-right threats sent to German politicians, courts and celebrities

Some of the emails contained bomb and other death threats, or boasted of being in possession of guns and biological weapons, media reported.

Berlin prosecutors, who are coordinating the national investigation, said it had received reports of more than 100 threats. In no cases were bombs found.

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