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CRIME

Film of slain teacher’s beating: ‘good, he’s dead’

One of the three suspects accused of beating a 54-year-old Swedish school teacher to death in April filmed the assault with a mobile phone camera, giving prosecutors key evidence as the trio's murder trial opened on Monday.

Film of slain teacher's beating: 'good, he's dead'
The 20-year-old murder suspect hides her face in court

The brutal assault and death of school teacher Tommy Johansson has received a great deal of attention in the Swedish media.

Two men and one woman are charged with the crime, all in their early twenties.

One of the men has been charged with murder, while the woman has been charged with murder and an alternative charge of being an accomplice to murder. The second man has been charged with being an accomplice to murder as well as with protecting a criminal.

All three suspects visited a pizzeria in Hofors, in eastern Sweden on April 3rd where they ran into Johansson, who had been one of the woman’s favourite teachers in high school.

When the trio left the restaurant, the woman told her two male friends that Johansson had groped her. One of the men reacted violently, and found out where the teacher lived.

Once he’d found the address, the three broke into Johansson’s apartment.

There they beat Johansson, subjecting him to severe and prolonged assault that verged on torture, according to prosecutors.

The three suspects also stole a computer as well as Johansson’s cash card before leaving the scene.

Part of the assault has been documented, as one of the men brought out his mobile phone camera to record the proceedings.

“It’s impossible to see anything of the recording, as it’s so dark, but the sound is fine. This recording is one of our most important pieces of evidence against the accused,” prosecutor Krister Frykman told news agency TT.

The suspects can be heard yelling at each other on the recording, and one of them is heard saying, “Good, he’s dead now.”

Both murder suspects deny the murder charges against them, but admit to assault. The third suspect denied charges of accessory to murder, but admitted that he had been present in the apartment throughout the deadly assault.

Prosecutor Krister Frykman called the events inside Johansson’s apartment a “reckless assault.”

The murdered teacher’s daughter told the court that she had visited her father on Saturday, April 2nd. The two also saw each other later that evening at the pizzeria where he met the suspects.

She then passed by her father’s house late Sunday night, but didn’t enter his apartment again until Sunday afternoon. The front door was unlocked, which she took to mean that her father was home, so she entered, and found him dead on the floor in the hall.

The 20 year-old man’s attorney, Gustaf Andersson, said during the trial that the trio’s intention in visiting Johansson at his home was to “give him a good fright,” so that he’d never disturb the 20 year-old woman again.

The man accused of murder denied having jumped on the teacher’s head.

According to the accused, Johansson was still breathing when they left the apartment after the assault.

The attorney told TT that his client did not believe the force he used to be deadly, or even that it could’ve caused the victim permanent harm.

The murder suspect’s comment “Good, now he’s dead” has yet to be explained, however, but according to his attorney, the teacher was still breathing at the time his client made the comment.

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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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