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Cannabis worth millions seized at Swedish port

A major drugs bust in Sweden has resulted in police seizing 300 kilograms of cannabis with an estimated value of millions of dollars.

Published: 20 October 2016 11:57 CEST

Cannabis worth millions seized at Swedish port

A file photo of a Swedish police cannabis find not related to the story. Photo: Polisen

Two men were arrested last week after driving off a ferry from Gdynia in Poland to Karlskrona in southern Sweden. Almost 300kg of cannabis was found in their truck, Swedish public service broadcaster SVT reports.

According to a Swedish Customs Agency (Tullverket) estimation, the haul could be worth as much as 30 million kronor ($3.39 million).

“There's clearly a smuggling network out there that will be really annoyed about this right now. We’re talking about a large sum of money,” Sven-Petr Ohlsson from Tullverket told SVT.

The bust is one of the biggest drug finds in Sweden in recent years, and follows a pattern shared by previous examples.

In 2012, 400kg of cannabis was found by Tullverket in a truck at the port in Helsingborg in the southwest of the country. That stash was estimated to be worth 40 million kronor ($4.52 million).

“It’s organized smuggling where trucks that come to Sweden work like Trojan horses. They hide in the flood of traffic that occurs when for example a ferry comes in. It was one such Trojan horse that we stopped in this example from Karlskrona,” Ohlsson explained.

The two men who were on the truck have been remanded in custody accused of serious drug smuggling, and more people are expected to be called for questioning.

Though Sweden has a reputation for being a progressive nation, it is strict when it comes to illicit drugs. In July 2015, two men were jailed for a combined five and a half years for growing around 31 kg of marijuana in a disused school building.

That same month, US rapper Snoop Dogg was arrested on suspicion of using illegal drugs after a concert in Uppsala. The investigation into him was later dropped, despite Swedish police saying he had tested positive for narcotics, because it was not possible to prove that he consumed drugs on Swedish soil.

Top-ranking Syrian military official to face trial in Sweden

Sixty-five-year-old former Syrian brigadier general Mohammed Hamo, who lives in Sweden, stands accused of “aiding and abetting” war crimes during Syria’s civil war, which can carry a sentence of life in jail.

The war in Syria between Bashar al-Assad’s regime and armed opposition groups, including the Islamic State, erupted after the government repressed peaceful pro-democracy protests in 2011.

It has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s economy and infrastructure.

According to the charge sheet, Hamo contributed – through “advice and action” – to the Syrian army’s warfare, “which systematically involved indiscriminate attacks on several towns or places in the area in and around the towns of Hama and Homs”.

The charges concern the period of January 1st to July 20th, 2012 and the trial is expected to last until late May.

Prosecutors say that the Syrian army’s “warfare has included widespread air and ground attacks by unknown perpetrators within the Syrian army”.

The prosecution argues that strikes were carried out without distinction – as required by international law – between civilian and military targets.

In his role as a brigadier general and head of an armament division, he allegedly helped with the coordination and supply of arms to units, enabling the carrying out of orders on an “operational level”.

Hamo’s lawyer, Mari Kilman, told AFP that her client denied committing a crime but said she did not wish to comment further ahead of the trial.

Several plaintiffs are due to testify at the trial, including Syrians from the cities in question and a British photographer who was injured during one of the strikes.

‘Complete impunity’

“The attacks in and around Homs and Hama in 2012 resulted in widespread civilian harm and an immense destruction of civilian properties,” Aida Samani, senior legal advisor at rights group Civil Rights Defenders, told AFP.

“The same conduct has been repeated systematically by the Syrian army in other cities across Syria with complete impunity,” she continued.

This trial will be the first in Europe “to address these types of indiscriminate attacks by the Syrian army”, according to Samani, who added that it “will be the first opportunity for victims of the attacks to have their voices heard in an independent court”.

Hamo is the highest-ranking military official to actually go on trial in Europe, but other European countries have also tried to bring charges against even more senior members.

In March, Swiss prosecutors charged Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of president Bashar al-Assad, with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

However, it remains unlikely Rifaat al-Assad – who recently returned to Syria after 37 years in exile – will show up in person for the trial, for which a date has yet to be set.

Swiss law allows for trials in absentia under certain conditions.

Last November, France issued an international arrest warrant for Bashar al-Assad himself, who stands accused of complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes over chemical attacks in 2013.

Three other international warrants were also issued for the arrests of Bashar al-Assad’s brother Maher, the de-facto chief of the Fourth Division – an elite military unit of the Syrian army – and two generals.

In January of 2022, a German court sentenced former Syrian colonel Anwar Raslan to life in jail for crimes against humanity in the first global trial over state-sponsored torture in Syria, which was hailed by victims as a victory for justice.

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