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ALMEDALEN 2022

Swedish extremist ‘bought swords and bow for Almedalen attack’

Theodor Engström, the far-right extremist who fatally stabbed one of Sweden's leading psychiatrists at the Almedalen political festival, had brought two swords and a bow and arrow to Visby to carry out his attack, prosecution documents revealed on Tuesday.

Published: 1 November 2022 10:45 CET

Swedish extremist 'bought swords and bow for Almedalen attack'

Police and rescue services arrive at Donners plats in Visby after psychiatrist Ing-Marie Wieselgren was stabbed. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

The prosecutor Henrik Olin on Tuesday morning charged the 33-year-old with committing a terror crime through murder for stabbing Ing-Marie Wieselgren, and also for preparation for a terror crime for his alleged plot to kill the Centre Party leader Annie Lööf.

In the prosecution document, it states that Engström began preparing for his attack on June 20th, and had purchased a double-bladed knife, two swords and a bow and arrow, which he had left in the tent where he was staying at the time he stabbed Wieselgren. He had also collected together information on where Lööf would be during the festival.

In a press release, the court said that Engström, who psychiatrists have concluded was severely disturbed at the time of the attack, will go on trial between November 9th and November 15th. Engström has a background in the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement.

In his stämningsansökan or prosecution document, the prosecutor Henrik Olin wrote that the attack “could have seriously hurt Sweden” and that Engström had carried out the attack to “strike grave terror into the population or parts of the population”.

READ ALSO: What we know about the Almedalen knife attack

The Almedalen political festival, where Olin carried out his attack, is one of the key events in the Swedish year, with all of the eight parliamentary parties, civil society groups, companies and government agencies, all holding speeches, talks, debates and other events.

Engström is pleading guilty to all charges, and has admitted both to killing Wieselgren and to have had Lööf as a target.

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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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