Follow-up questions

Follow-up questions re dismissal of request for a review of case AM-185260-11: the Government, Parliament, and Armed Forces [of Sweden] under investigation for war crimes in Libya

(this is a quick translation – the original was written in Sweden)

The questions were sent on Dec 30 and 31, 2011.

Click here for an overview of the process.

Re: “Dismissal of request for review of case AM-185260-11″

Dear prosecutors Häggström/Waldenström

Please find forwarded the questions one of us have put regarding your decision and rationale:

You have dismissed our request on the basis that we lack connection to the matter and as a result lack justified interest in a review.

As a response, allow me to put forward this. The majority of us who have reqested a review of the matter are Swedish citizens eligable to vote and who also pay taxes. Many are also liable for service in the [Swedish] military/civilian defence forces. As such we do have “a connection to the matter” in such a way that “a justified interest” for a review is present. Everything the state of Sweden does abroad is done in the name of and for the nation, i.e. on behalf of the citizens as well as being paid by the citizens. If the state of Sweden creates death and destruction in other countries the citizens of Sweden will carry the immediate costs and other consequences of this – for example the costs for caring for refugees from the destroyed country as well as potential acts of revenge from foreigners that have been affected. These circumstances (as well as possibly several other circumstances) do connect us to the matter.

Therefore, I demand four answers from yourselves:

  1. Your have received only name and residental addresses from us, the individuals filing these charges. In what way[s] have you investigated us when you arrived at the conclusion that none of us have sufficient connection and justified interest?
  2. What catgegory of Swedish persons would have the necessary connection to the matter? Are relatives of dead Swedish soldiers sufficiently connected to it?
  3. If Swedes (as participants on the winning side in the war) by you are not considered sufficiently connected to the outbreak of the war and the crimes committed by the attacking coalition, would it then be possible that persons from the loosing side (with or without Swedish citizenship) has sufficient connection to the matter?
  4. If your replis to questions 2 and 3 mean that neither any Swede nor any foreigner have sufficient connection to the matter I need a description from yourselves stipulating the type of person that do have sufficient connection.

With kind regards,

Carl Lundström

Allow me to conclude with a reflection made by another of us who filed these charges:

We now have the word from a senior government official that we, the citizens, have no relation to what the state does. This, truly, is a posture unseen [in this country] since the 18th century.

I CC in [prosecutor] Lise Tamm and the registrators so that this request is ensured a place in the diaries in order to allow scholars sometime in the future to learn how things worked in the early years of the 21st century.

Kind regards,

Kristoffer Hell

 

Comments are closed.