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PROSTITUTION

Police had ex-police chief’s DNA: report

The police had a sample of former police chief and convicted sex offender Göran Lindberg's DNA, his mobile phone numbers and almost his whole car registration plate, already in 2007 but did not follow up the information, according to a new report.

Published: 12 September 2010 10:40 CEST
Police had ex-police chief's DNA: report

The information that police had access to the former Uppsala police chief personal details already in 2007, three years before he was convicted of a slew of serious sex crimes, has emerged from a documentary programme broadcast on Sveriges Radio.

The claims have been forwarded by a 17-year-old girl who had reported that she had been raped by Lindberg, but no further check of the information was undertaken.

The revelations give support to calls for a “truth commission” to examine whether Lindberg could have been exposed and prosecuted earlier. The issue is currently being handled by the justice department while waiting for an appeals court ruling on the case.

Göran Lindberg, a former principal of Sweden’s police training college and chief constable of Uppsala County as well as a renowned speaker on equality in the workplace, was jailed for six and a half years in July for crimes including aggravated rape, pimping and paying for sex.

Lindberg lodged an appeal against his prison sentence in August.

Lindberg faced 23 charges, including one count of aggravated rape, three counts of rape, ten counts of pimping and eight counts of paying for sex.

He pleaded guilty only to the charges of paying for sex, but was found guilty on all but six charges. He was acquitted of one charge of rape, three charges of pimping and one charge of preparing to rape a child.

The crimes were committed over a period of several year but Lindberg was not arrested until January 25th 2010 in Falun, where he was on his way to a meeting with a young girl with whom he had planned a sexual encounter. At this point he had been under police surveillance for some time.

When he was arrested, Lindberg was carrying a bag containing items that could be used to facilitate sexual assaults.

PROSTITUTION

Spain’s top court reinstates first sex workers’ union

Spanish sex workers have the right to form their own union, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, overturning an earlier court decision ordering the dissolution of Spain's first such labour organisation.

Published: 2 June 2021 16:34 CEST
Spain's top court reinstates first sex workers' union
Photo: Oscar del Pozo/AFP

Known as OTRAS (or “the Sex Workers’ Organisation”), the union was discretely set up in August 2018 but was closed three months later by order of the National Court following an appeal by the government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

But following an appeal, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of OTRAS, saying that its statutes, which had triggered the initial legal challenge, were “in line with the law” and that sex workers “have the fundamental right to freedom of association and the right to form a union”.

In its November 2018 ruling, the National Court had argued that allowing the union to exist amounted to “recognising the act of procurement as lawful”.

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Contacted by AFP, the union did not wish to comment.

When it was founded, OTRAS received the green light from the labour ministry and its statutes were publicly registered in the official gazette the day before the government went into a summer recess.

But three weeks later, the government — which portrays itself as “feminist and in favour of the abolition of prostitution” according to Sanchez’s Twitter feed at the time — started legal moves against it.

In Spain, prostitution is neither legal nor illegal but it is tolerated.

Although it is not recognised as employment, there is a large number of licensed brothels throughout the country.

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