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PROSTITUTION

Ex-police chief suspected of pimping

Former Uppsala police chief Göran Lindberg, already accused of rape, is also suspected of involvement in the organised sex trade, a prosecutor said on Thursday.

Published: 25 February 2010 10:04 CET
Ex-police chief suspected of pimping

Lindberg is now suspected of several new rapes, and for pimping offences stretching over an extended period of time.

The prosecutor requested on Thursday that the former police chief continue to be held in custody.

“I have extended the duration of the investigation,” prosecutor Håkan Roswall told news agency TT.

The new suspicions relate to a series of further incidents: a rape on January 31st 2007, rape and sexual coercion on January 12th 2010, rapes during April and May 2009, and pimping from October 1st 2006 to September 30th 2009.

Lindberg is already on remand for a series of other sex crimes and the investigation, already large, is continuing to grow.

“There are a lot of people to interview, among others the police chief. So there is a lot left to do,” Roswall said.

Asked if there were suspicions that any further crimes had been committed, Roswall replied:

“There are, but I currently do not have sufficient evidence to go to the court with them,” he said.

The pimping charges are considered to be of a particularly serious nature.

“It concerns exploitation, which is considered more serious than promotion. He has gained financially,” Håkan Roswall told TT.

Roswall stated that there are at present no further suspects.

“There is no prerequisite of a fixed network in these types of cases, and there is no indication that there has been in this case either,” he said.

The prosecutor has requested that the remand hearing be set for Friday and that the former police chief be held in custody until March 25th.

“His position is the same – he denies the charges,” said Karl Halring, Göran Lindberg’s lawyer.

PROSTITUTION

Spain’s top court reinstates first sex workers’ union

Spanish sex workers have the right to form their own union, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, overturning an earlier court decision ordering the dissolution of Spain's first such labour organisation.

Published: 2 June 2021 16:34 CEST
Spain's top court reinstates first sex workers' union
Photo: Oscar del Pozo/AFP

Known as OTRAS (or “the Sex Workers’ Organisation”), the union was discretely set up in August 2018 but was closed three months later by order of the National Court following an appeal by the government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

But following an appeal, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of OTRAS, saying that its statutes, which had triggered the initial legal challenge, were “in line with the law” and that sex workers “have the fundamental right to freedom of association and the right to form a union”.

In its November 2018 ruling, the National Court had argued that allowing the union to exist amounted to “recognising the act of procurement as lawful”.

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Contacted by AFP, the union did not wish to comment.

When it was founded, OTRAS received the green light from the labour ministry and its statutes were publicly registered in the official gazette the day before the government went into a summer recess.

But three weeks later, the government — which portrays itself as “feminist and in favour of the abolition of prostitution” according to Sanchez’s Twitter feed at the time — started legal moves against it.

In Spain, prostitution is neither legal nor illegal but it is tolerated.

Although it is not recognised as employment, there is a large number of licensed brothels throughout the country.

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