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CRIME

Suspect arrested over car park murder

A 23-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the brutal parking lot assault that led to the death of a 78-year-old woman in Landskrona in southern Sweden.

Published: 3 April 2010 10:05 CEST
Suspect arrested over car park murder

The suspect was interrogated on Friday afternoon and the prosecutor is expected to determine whether or not there are sufficient grounds to arraign him.

“We are unsure of how the prosecutor will weigh the evidence,” detective Tommy Lindén told TT news agency.

The 23-year-old man is the fifth suspect who has been brought in for questioning involuntarily.

Lindén said that the other suspects are the man’s friends and relatives.

The 23-year-old was identified based on witness testimony.

“We were able to encourage people to come forward and testify,” Lindén said.

The original charges include aggravated assault and involuntary manslaughter after the woman died. Police have since upgraded the crime to murder. “But that can change again,” Lindén said.

Earlier on Friday he described the investigation as extremely difficult.

“There has to be someone in Landskrona who will come forward and tell us what they know. It all depends on someone telling the truth. We know that someone has lied,” he told TT.

On Thursday, police impounded a car found in Landskrona.

“It might be the car used by the attacker. But we don’t know that for sure, it may have been another vehicle,” Lindén said.

Police questioned the owner of the car on Thursday. The man in question is in his thirties. Police declined to comment on what information he might have revealed.

The car, a red Mazda 323, is now impounded in a police garage in Helsingborg for forensic processing, which Lindén says may take “two or three days.”

A 36-year-old and a 27-year-old were also questioned about the crime on Thursday. Both are local residents and provided useful information. Neither are suspects in the case, Lindén said.

He did not provide details on what the men said, but both are believed to have been in the parking lot when the elderly woman was assaulted.

Helsingborg prosecutor Göran Olsson will be reviewing the case, according to police.

The Skåne police department hopes to resolve the case over the Easter weekend.

“It’s going to be all-nighters for us. We have brought in extra staff over the weekend and are firing on all cylinders to solve this,” Lindén said.

The 78-year-old woman lost consciousness after she was punched in the face while trying to intervene on behalf of her 71-year-old partner who was being attacked by a man in a parking dispute.

After surgery at a neurological surgery unit in nearby Lund, her condition improved slightly before worsening again on Tuesday afternoon. She died in her hospital bed at around 4pm on Wednesday with relatives consenting to end her treatment after doctors said they were powerless to restore her to health.

A group of Landskrona businesses offered a reward of 40 000 kronor ($5,500) for tips leading to the arrest of the attacker. A demonstration against violence is planned in Landskrona on Monday.

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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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