Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

CRIME

Mother arrested for murder of infant son

A woman in Linköping in southern Sweden has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of her two-year-old son. The boy was found lifeless in his home by his father.

Published: 8 March 2009 11:52 CET

The child’s mother is now under arrest on suspicion of the murder of her child.

“It was on Friday that the boy was found lifeless in an apartment in central Linköping. He was declared dead on arrival at emergency at Linköping University Hospital,” Mariana Persson at Östergötland police said to news agency TT.

Shortly after the boy was rushed to hospital the 32-year-old mother was arrested. She was later detained by the prosecutor and has been interviewed over the weekend.

“She denies the offences,” confirmed Berit Blick at Linköping police.

The family has no other members other than the two-year-old boy, his mother, and 36-year-old father.

There were no other people present in the apartment when the father came home to find his son dead.

The mother had not by this time called the emergency services, confirmed Berit Blick.

Blick was unwilling to divulge the exact nature of police suspicions nor explain how the police believe the boy was killed.

“We have our ideas, but he is set to undergo an autopsy and I don’t want to speculate.”

Blick was unwilling to confirm whether either the mother or the father had previously been reported to the authorities.

Both the mother and the father are reported to be in a poor mental state. The father has received help from psychiatrists at the hospital.

Swedish rail derailments could be linked to 'Russian-backed sabotage'

The report comes just days after prosecutors arrested two German-Russian men on suspicion of spying for Russia and planning attacks in Germany to undermine military support for Ukraine. There have been similar alleged incidents in several other European countries.

FT also claims that security services in Sweden suspect that a series of recent railway derailments may be acts of state-backed sabotage.

It doesn’t mention any specific incidents, but late last year, a fully-loaded freight train derailed on the Malmbanan near Vassijaure in northern Sweden, damaging around 15 kilometres of the line.

Repairs began quickly, but state-owned Swedish mining company LKAB, which uses the line to transport iron ore was greatly affected, with losses of around 100 million kronor per day while the line was closed and a 3.8 million drop in operating profits for the last quarter of 2024.

It reopened on February 20th, but just five days later it derailed again in Vassijaure, this time along a shorter stretch.

Fredrik Hultgren-Friberg, press spokesperson at the Swedish Security Services (Säpo), reiterated to Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) what’s previously been said, that Säpo is collaborating with police on the Malmbanan investigation.

“Säpo has an ongoing, routine collaboration with the police force on a number of cases, primarily when it cannot be ruled out that a foreign power is involved. One of those collaborations is on the investigation around Malmbanan,” he said.

Hultgren-Friberg declined to comment on the FT’s reports that Russia is planning attacks on European infrastructure.

“What I can confirm is that Russia is the largest single threat to Sweden,” he told SvD. “We’ve said that for a while. What we can see is more aggressive, risky behaviour from Russia in their illegal actions and spying in Sweden.”

Swedish police and Säpo have previously confirmed that they are investigating the Malmbanan incidents as possible sabotage, which doesn’t automatically mean that they actively suspect sabotage, but is also a routine procedure to facilitate the probe.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told Swedish news agency TT that the reports in FT did not come as a surprise to him.

“Russia is prepared to go further and carry out operations and sabotage on other countries’ territory,” he said.

But when asked whether such acts of sabotage had taken place in Sweden, he said that wasn’t the case.

“We haven’t seen any such signs for now, but we are on our toes. Other countries have seen things where they know or believe that there are such connections,” Kristersson said.

In late April, LKAB said it was so badly affected by the derailments that it may need to close temporarily as it’s not able to get stock to customers quickly enough, so its warehouses are nearing capacity.

“It’s a real worry,” LKAB’s CEO Jan Moström told TT. “If we can’t lower our stock then we’re going to have to start dialling down production capacity.”

Moström believes that this could affect up to 600 people – half being LKAB employees and the other half being independent contractors.

Url copied to clipboard!