Facebook video puts brakes on Swedish speedster’s Swiss appeal

In August 2010, the 37-year-old Swede revved the engine of his Mercedes-Benz to 290 km/h on the A12 motorway, a new record speed at the time.

The driver was stopped by police between Flamatt and Guin. He was arrested, had his licence taken away, and was handed a 27,000 franc ($30,000) fine.

This Tuesday, more than a year later, he is due to appear in court to appeal the fine. The Swede claims not to have realized he was driving so fast due to the speedometer becoming stuck.

However, it later turned out that the Swedish speedster posted a video on his Facebook account in which he can be seen driving at 260 km/h, which is the maximum speed shown on the speedometer of his car.

The caption claims the journey was undertaken in Germany, and is captioned: “Drive in Berlin.”

However,deputy prosecutor Markus Julmy in the Swiss city of Freiburg, contacted by newspaper Le Matin Dimanche, said he considers the video “serious enough to become of interest for Swiss courts”.

Julmy has ordered cantonal police to make further investigations into the incident.

In the video, recorded by the Swedish man’s partner, a child’s voice was audible from the back seat.