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CRIME

Stockholm subway station explosion was a hand grenade, police confirm

An explosion at a suburban Stockholm subway station which left a man dead was caused by a hand grenade, police confirmed on Tuesday.

Published: 9 January 2018 15:42 CET
Stockholm subway station explosion was a hand grenade, police confirm
The station where the explosion took place. Photo: Anders Wiklund / TT

The victim, a man in his 60s, died in hospital on Sunday afternoon after he picked up an object at the Vårby Gård station southwest of the city centre, and it exploded. A 45-year-old woman was also injured in the blast.

Police had earlier said they suspected that the object had been a hand grenade, and on Tuesday afternoon a spokesperson confirmed that this was the case.

“Our technicians on the scene have now been able to confirm that it was a hand grenade,” police spokesperson Lars Byström told the TT news agency. He said police did not yet know how the grenade exploded, adding that anyone with information should come forward to them.

Police earlier said that the man who died was unlikely to have been purposely targeted by whoever left the explosive at the station.

Vårby gård is one of 61 areas across Sweden considered to be 'vulnerable', and defined as “a geographically defined area characterized by a low socio-economic status where criminals have an impact on the local community”.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about Sweden's vulnerable areas 


A map showing the location of the subway station, in a southwestern suburb of the capital.

Sweden’s Justice Minister Morgan Johansson has called for an amnesty of the weapons and tougher laws in order to get hand grenades off Sweden’s streets.

Speaking at a government press conference on Tuesday, Johansson said: “It won’t be an amnesty that ultimately breaks down this type of crime, but it prevents such accidents in the future.”

Sunday’s incident has put the spotlight on hand grenade crime, which appears to be on the increase in Sweden over the last few years. Figures provided by the Dagens Nyheter daily last year showed that there were 27 instances of grenades exploding in Sweden during 2016, compared to 10 in 2015.

Johansson said that a harsher weapons law which came into force at the start of this year should help to reduce this kind of criminality. Among the measures introduced was a change in the minimum punishment for aggravated weapons crime and aggravated crime against compulsory licensing for explosives, which was increased from one to two years' imprisonment.

READ ALSO: Sweden's new laws to watch out for in 2018

The minister had already raised the possibility of a hand grenade amnesty — which would be the country's first — in October last year. At the time, he said the proposal for an amnesty between October 2018 and January 2019 would be brought to the parliament in February this year.

While he said that the most effective crime-fighting measures was to deal with the perpetrators themselves, Johansson said on Tuesday: “It can also be a good idea to take in these hand grenades or other explosive goods to get them away from society. The more that are out there, the greater the risk that they go off.”

READ ALSO: Why Sweden has more fatal shootings per capita than Norway or Germany

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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