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CRIME

Eminent Swedish psychiatrist killed in Almedalen knife attack

The Swedish psychiatrist Ing-Marie Wieselgren was named on Wednesday evening as the victim of the knife attack at the Almedalen political festival.

Published: 7 July 2022 09:21 CEST
Eminent Swedish psychiatrist killed in Almedalen knife attack
Ing-Marie Wieselgren, photographed in Stockholm. Photo: Simon Rehnström / SvD / TT

Wieselgren, 64, worked as National Coordinator for Psychiatry at The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKR), and was stabbed in the chest on Wednesday at 2pm as she was on the way to a seminar on children with neuropsychiatric diagnoses such as ADHD and Autism. 

She was given CPR until an ambulance arrived, and taken to the Visby hospital, but died shortly afterwards. 

Wieselgren had worked throughout her life to communicate with the public on mental health and psychiatric issues, contributing several times to the Thought of the Day slot on Swedish state broadcast SR, and recording videos on YouTube.  

Hours before her death, she recorded and published a video clip in which she said, “However well we do in building our society, some people will have difficulties. Sometimes life is not so simple, it is not so nice to us”. 

Wieselgren’s death was officially confirmed in a press release from the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions on Thursday morning. 

“SKR has lost an appreciated and much-loved employee, her colleagues have lost a good friend, and Sweden as a whole has lost one of the strongest voices for psychiatric health and psychiatric care,” said the organisation’s chief executive Steffan Isling. “She was a strong voice for those who are otherwise not heard in the national debate.”

Sweden’s health minister, Lena Hallengren, said in a statement on Twitter that Wieselgren had been for her “an important source of knowledge and inspiration in the work against psychiatric ill-health.” 

“The message that Ing-Marie Wieselgren has died in this horrific attack in Visby has left me in dismay,” she said. 

According to the Sweden’s Expressen and Aftonbladet tabloid, the 33-year-old attacker, who is being held on suspicion of murder, has links to the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR), and had expressed support for the far-Right Alternative for Sweden party. 

According to the anti-extremist magazine Expo, the man signed up for so-called “support membership” of NMR in 2015, and wrote several articles for the organisation’s Nordfront newspaper. 

He also took part in at least four of the organisations demonstrations between 2017 and 2018, after which it is unclear if he was still actively engaged. 

According to Expo, the man attended the Almedalen festival in 2014, at which he wore a Sweden Democrat t-shirt, but he told a representative for the neo-Nazi Svenskarnas party, that he also supported them. 

“I sympathise with the Sweden Democrats, but I also support you,” he said, the magazine reported. “You are the spearhead of the nationalist movement.”

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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.

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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