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CRIME

Teen murder suspect taken to mental clinic

A 16-year-old girl suspected of plotting the murder of a 15-year-old girl last weekend in Stureby south of Stockholm has been moved to a psychiatric clinic, much to the dismay of her attorney.

Published: 12 June 2009 12:53 CEST
Teen murder suspect taken to mental clinic

“We had created an appropriate environment with ample resources for her up at the Kronoberg detention centre and I think that moving her again is unfortunate. The fewer changes the better,” said attorney Jan Karlsson to the TT news agency.

Following a visit with his client at the detention centre on Thursday night, however, Karlsson admitted his client was not well, although he denied media reports alleging she had attempted suicide.

“As I understand it, the reason for the move was her general condition,” he said.

Karlsson said no further interrogations of his client were planned this week.

The girl, along with her 16-year-old boyfriend, has been held since their arrest last Sunday morning following the killing of 15-year-old Therese Johansson Rojo.

The boyfriend has been remanded in custody on suspicion of murder, while the girl is suspected of incitement to commit murder.

The relocation of the girl comes after she suffered what is being described in the Swedish press as a breakdown during an interrogation when she was presented with evidence from mobile phone text messages which connect her to the killing.

Prosecutors believe the 16-year-old girl convinced her boyfriend to kill Johansson Rojo after learning that the 15-year-old had flirted with her boyfriend at a party earlier in the spring.

The incident, which friends characterized as “an innocent flirt” causing the 16-year-old to fly into a jealous rage, the Expressen newspaper reports.

The boyfriend has admitted that he killed the girl during a party near a wooded hillside in Stureby late Saturday night, while his girlfriend has admitted to sending the text messages.

“She has admitted to sending text messages with certain contents, but she denies committing any crime,” Karlsson told Expressen.

“She had no criminal intent.”

An attorney for the boyfriend, Claes Borgström, said he expects the boy will be questioned further early next week.

According to prosecutor Karolina Lindekrantz, the murder of Johansson Rojo had been hard to fathom, but relatively straight forward to investigate from a legal perspective.

“We think all of this is totally surreal. How can someone plan a crime like this and then keep the text messages? Something must have happened in their relationship which caused them to lose touch with reality,” she told TT.

Police and prosecutors have gained access to more than 20 text messages sent between the two suspects in which they plan the crime.

Investigators are now trying to determine whether or not they can recover any additional text messages which may have been erased.

Lindekrantz is also waiting for information from the coroner about how exactly Johansson Rojo died.

“I’m going to receive the autopsy report on Monday afternoon. We’re not looking for a murder weapon,” she said.

At the weekend, prosecutors plan to hold a series of more in-depth interviews with several of the young people who were present at the picnic area the night of the killing but weren’t in the company of the two suspects.

Lindekrantz said she doesn’t expect the investigation into the murder of Johansson Rojo to be finished before the end of August.

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POLICE

Swedish police leaks scandal: How gang criminals got hold of sensitive information

A new report in Dagens Nyheter has revealed over 514 suspected leaks of sensitive information from at least 30 members of the police force to criminals since 2018. Here's what we know so far.

Published: 30 April 2024 12:28 CEST
Updated: 30 April 2024 15:45 CEST
Swedish police leaks scandal: How gang criminals got hold of sensitive information

What’s happened?

According to an investigative report by newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN), multiple gang members have infiltrated the police force by, for example, dating police employees, or using family connections to gain access to sensitive information about ongoing cases.

The first article in DN’s series focuses on a woman the newspaper calls Elin, who met a man, Jonas (not his real name), on a dating app when she had one year left of her police education. She falls in love, but his only goal with the relationship is to get a source within the police force which he can use for access to secret information.

Over the course of four years until she was caught, she made multiple illegal searches in the police register for Jonas, his associates and enemies, as well as providing him with information on ongoing investigations against him.

Other cases investigated by the newspaper include a border guard who sold classified information to gangs, a police officer who leaked information to what DN describes as “one of Sweden’s most notorious criminals” and an investigator who was dating a man she was investigating, who she shared screenshots of sensitive information with.

In another case, the police received a tip-off that information was being leaked to the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. It was discovered that a group of five alarm operators had made an unusually high number of searches for members of the Hells Angels, who were later discovered to have connections with the gang that they had lied about during their background checks.

What have the consequences of these leaks been?

In some cases, the leaks preceded revenge attacks on enemies of the gang member involved in the relationship. In other cases, the gang members’ enemies disappeared or were murdered.

Some of the people from the police force involved in the leaks were sentenced to fines for illegal data access or breaches of professional secrecy, while the evidence against others was not sufficient to prosecute. 

At least 30 employees had for different reasons been considered “security risks” and either resigned or were forced to quit, the newspaper reported, with over 514 suspected leaks taking place from police to criminals since 2018.

How do criminals find police officers?

According to DN, they look for things that can be used as blackmail, like police officers who buy drugs, or set “honey traps”, like the one used against Elin, where they meet police officers or students on dating apps and start a relationship.

“You take Tinder, for example, and set your search radius so the police school is in the centre. When you get a match, it’s easy to check if it’s a student, through class lists or how they present themselves on social media. They’re proud of their line of work,” Jonas told DN.

They might also use their family connections to put pressure on relatives who work in the police force.

Why is this important?

It’s important because Sweden has seen a rise in gang-related violence in recent years, with a surge in shootings and bombings as gangs fight for control over different drug markets.

Swedes also have a high level of trust in the police force – 72 percent according to a 2024 study by Medieakademin, topping the list of state authorities, with a higher level of trust than universities, healthcare, the courts and even the Swedish church. This was five percent higher than in 2023.

Although the vast majority of police officers do not leak information to criminal networks, Sweden does not have a history of organised crime infiltrating the police force, so officials are keeping a close eye on these leaks to make sure they don’t become more common.

On April 29th, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told TT newswire that the leaks were “very serious”, potentially putting trust in the police force at risk.

“There are many great risks and one is that trust in police declines, that people get the idea that mafia-like methods are used to infiltrate law enforcement,” he said, before adding that he was unable to say whether it constituted a threat to national security or not purely based on the initial DN article.

“But the mere suspicion of these types of connections are damaging,” he told the newswire.

What happens now?

Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer told DN that he planned to call a meeting with police leadership about the reports, which he described as “extremely serious”.

“[At that meeting] we will consider the need for further measures,” he said.

“Leaking sensitive information to criminals is against the law and can have very damaging consequences for the work of the police force,” Strömmer told DN, adding that it could undermine trust in the police and “damage democracy”.

Last summer, the government increased the penalty for breaching professional secrecy, and a special investigator was tasked with looking at a potential reform of the rules on corruption and professional misconduct in February – the Crime Prevention Council is also involved in that investigation, where it has been asked to provide information on how gangs use government employees.

“Protecting the integrity of the justice system against infiltration and other security threats is a central part of the new national strategy against organised crime that the government decided on earlier this year, and it is given the highest priority in our assignments to the authorities,” Strömmer told the newspaper.

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