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CRIME

Teens convicted for Stureby murder

The two teenagers charged with killing 15-year-old Therese Johansson Rojo in the Stockholm suburb of Stureby in June were found guilty on Wednesday by the Södertörn District Court.

Teens convicted for Stureby murder

The 16-year-old boy was convicted for murder, while his accomplice, a 16-year-old girl, was convicted for instigation of murder.

The evidence against the two presented by prosecutors was overwhelming, according to the court.

The court ordered that both teenagers undergo a psychiatric evaluation before determining their sentences.

Results from the tests aren’t expected for at least a month.

In making his final statement before the court, prosecutor Jakob Holmberg argued that both young people should be sentenced to four years of institutional juvenile care.

Both 16-year-olds appeared somewhat depressed and serious as Holmberg made his case to the court on Wednesday morning.

The boy stared at the floor while the girl gazed straight ahead.

The prosecutor said that both young people were equally responsible for the death of Johansson Rojo, even if each of them were accused of difference crimes.

According to Holmberg, the girl was responsible for urging the boy to carry out the crime.

“The motive is clear. The girl was killed to allow the youngsters’ relationship to continue,” said Holmberg.

He argued that the 16-year-old boy was credible and offered important information about the event, but that the girl’s story was distorted.

As he finished his remarks, he addressed both suspects.

“You must now live with what happened for the rest of your lives. Take the opportunity to work through this in order to get back on your feet,” he said.

Attorney Claes Borgström, who represented the 16-year-old boy, said it wasn’t so easy to sum up the case.

“This is a case about children. The accused, the victim, and the witnesses are children. This has significance for determining the sentence,” he said.

Borgström admitted that his client was largely responsible for the death of Johansson Rojo, who died from injuries caused by the boy following a party celebrating her ninth grade graduation.

“My client has never tried to hide what happened or minimize his roll. He’s provided an explanation of how it could have happened,” he said.

Borgström characterized the murder as resulting from a psychological phenomenon related to the young couple’s unusually strong teenage romance, which included engagement rings.

He said that they had an unrealistic view of adult life and how a relationship works.

He emphasized that the boy and girl as a couple were an extremely unfortunate match.

“He was submissive and she was dominant,” he said.

According to testimony and evidence gathered from mobile phone text messages, the 16-year-old girl had threatened to break up with the boy unless he killed Johansson Rojo, who had allegedly told several people that she was also in a relationship with the boy.

After asking Johansson Rojo to accompany him to a wooded area near the graduation party, the 16-year-old boy proceeded to beat and strangle the girl, leaving her for dead.

She was found early the next morning, seriously injured. She was then rushed to a hospital where she later died from her injuries.

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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.

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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