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CRIME

Nazi poison used in ex-lover’s murder bid

A 32-year-old man from northern Sweden charged with trying to kill his ex-girlfriend four times had enough Zyklon B pesticide, once used in Nazi gas chambers, to kill 42,000 people.

Published: 10 July 2009 16:37 CEST
Nazi poison used in ex-lover's murder bid

In addition to being charged with four counts of attempted murder, the man from Luleå has also been charged with drugging and raping his former partner.

“Zyklon B exists to extinguish life,” prosecutor Ulla-Karin Lindström told the Norrländska Socialdemokraten newspaper.

On Thursday, the prosecution presented a comprehensive indictment against the man, who is accused of attempting to murder his 27-year-old former girlfriend with up to three kilogrammes of the poison Zyklon B, the notorious cyanide-based pesticide used in the Holocaust.

The case is unique, as it is the first time in Sweden that someone has been charged with attempted murder using Zyklon B.

Prosecutors allege that the man tried to murder his former partner on four separate occasions.

The first of these attempt took place on December 23rd of last year in a house they shared in a village outside Luleå.

On that occasion, the man allegedly placed a deadly dose of potassium cyanide in his former partner’s food while the two were having dinner together with their two children.

A second attempt occurred on January 3rd this year when man is alleged to have placed a flask containing a deadly dose of potassium cyanide under his ex-partner’s nose and mouth while she was sleeping.

The man’s third attempt, carried out on February 3rd, involved him allegedly placing a deadly dose of Zyklon B in the woman’s car.

Several days after that, the man is alleged to have placed a deadly dose of the the cyanide-based pesticide in his former partner’s stairwell, and to have taken a quantity of the poison into the woman’s house.

Prosecutor Lindström considers that it is just a matter of chance that the woman is still alive.

The accused man has confessed to buying the Zyklon B and admits to having handled the deadly poison.

But he denies that he decided to use the poison with the purpose of murdering his former partner.

“My client has given an explanation of why he bought the poison,” the man’s lawyer, Jan Wennerbrandt, told the newspaper.

During earlier police questioning, the man stated that he was going to use the Zyklon B to kill rats.

Using the name of a close relative, he had ordered three kilogrammes of the deadly poison – which prosecutors claim is enough to kill 42,000 people – from a factory in the Czech Republic which markets the substance under the tradename ‘Uragan D2’.

When the man’s relatives received a confirmation for the order, which cost €82.50 ($115), they became suspicious and contacted the police.

The couple have two young children, aged seven and four years, but have been separated for some time.

The separation has reportedly long been distressing for the man, leading him to prior acts of violence against his ex-lover.

Prosecutors also charge that back in December 2007, the man assaulted and drugged his former partner and then raped her.

The woman eventually sought help of a women’s emergency help service in April 2008 and later reported the man to police for the December 2007 rape.

The 32-year-old is facing a lengthly prison sentence should he be found guilty of all charges.

He has been remanded in custody since February.

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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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