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Mikael Andersson’s body likely found

Police believe they have found the body of 19-year-old Mikael Andersson from Lidköping who has been missing for about a week.

Published: 26 May 2008 06:58 CEST

The body of a man was fished out of a manure pond on a farm in the area on Sunday.

“It is most likely the 19-year-old man we have found,” said criminal inspector Thord Haraldsson to the TT news agency.

He didn’t want to go into more detail about how the police received the tip about where the body was found.

“We have questioned the suspects but also received tips from the public. The investigation has led us to this, one could say,” he said.

Andersson disappeared last weekend after attending a party near Skara, about 25 kilometres south of Lidköping in central Sweden.

His family reported him missing last Tuesday.

A few days later police found Andersson’s car.

“We made a discovery in the car which indicated that a crime had taken place, I can’t say more than that,” said Haraldsson.

Five people are in custody on suspicion of being involved in the murder. Four of them were arrested on Friday and a fifth on Saturday.

One is suspected for murder, three for serving as accomplices to murder, and one for protecting a criminal. The five suspects are between 17 and 30-years-old.

On Monday the public prosecutor must decide which of the suspects will remain in custody.

“We have no more suspects now,” said Haraldsson.

A large number of police using patrol dogs and a helicopter had been looking for the 19-year-old.

On Friday, police located the scene of the crime, but Haraldsson wouldn’t comment on where or how it was found.

“We became convinced then that it was a case of murder,” he said.

When the tip about the manure pond came in, several coast guard divers were called in. They in one of the two large manure ponds on the farm and found the body almost immediately.

“The body was examined by a medical examiner on the scene and will now go to the forensic medical center in Gothenburg for an autopsy,” said Haraldsson.

None of the suspects arrested are connected to the farm, which is just east of Skara, according to police.

The police cannot say anything at the current time about the motivation for the crime.

“The interrogation of the suspects will continue throughout the day on Sunday,” said Haraldsson.

'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast.

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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