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CRIME

Man held after woman found dead in rural area

A man was in custody on Wednesday morning after a woman was found dead in southern Sweden.

Published: 30 March 2016 07:16 CEST
Man held after woman found dead in rural area
An archive picture of a police officer. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

The woman's body was discovered on Tuesday evening in a forest area in Hultsfred municipality.

The circumstances of her death were initially unclear, but after forensic teams had examined the site, police launched a murder investigation.

A man was taken into custody for questioning shortly after midnight.

“We have a man who has been arrested on suspicion of murder,” police spokesperson Jimmy Modin told the TT newswire early on Wednesday morning.

He said the woman had not yet been identified.

“We have not been able to speak to relatives,” Modin told the Aftonbladet tabloid.

The suspected murder casts a dark shadow over a usually calm and quiet rural area.

Her body was found in Silverdalen, near the village of Lönneberga in Sweden's picturesque Småland region, an area made famous in novels by famous Swedish children's author Astrid Lindgren.

Lindgren's books about the young boy Emil and his family are set at a farm in Lönneberga.

CRIME

Nordic justice ministers meet tech giants on gangs using apps to hire ‘child soldiers’

The justice ministers of Denmark, Sweden and Norway are to meet representatives of the tech giants Google, Meta, Snapchat and TikTok, to discuss how to stop their platforms being used by gang criminals in the region.

Published: 20 September 2024 10:31 CEST
Nordic justice ministers meet tech giants on gangs using apps to hire 'child soldiers'

Denmark’s justice minister, Peter Hummelgaard, said in a press release that he hoped to use the meeting on Friday afternoon to discuss how to stop social media and messaging apps being used by gang criminals, who Danish police revealed earlier this year were using them to recruit so-called “child soldiers” to carry out gang killings.  

“We have seen many examples of how the gangs are using social media and encrypted messaging services to plan serious crimes and recruit very young people to do their dirty work,” Hummelgaard said. “My Nordic colleagues and I agree that a common front is needed to get a grip on this problem.”

As well as recruitment, lists have been found spreading on social media detailing the payments on offer for various criminal services.   

Hummelgaard said he would “insist that the tech giants live up to their responsibilities so that their platforms do not act as hotbeds for serious crimes” at the meeting, which will take place at a summit of Nordic justice ministers in Uppsala, Sweden.

In August, Hummelgaard held a meeting in Copenhagen with Sweden’s justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer, at which the two agreed to work harder to tackle cross-border organised crime, which has seen a series of Swedish youth arrested in Denmark after being recruited to carry out hits in the country. 

According to a press release from the Swedish justice ministry, the morning will be spent discussing how to combat the criminal economy and particularly organised crime in ports, with a press release from Finland’s justice ministry adding that the discussion would also touch on the “undue influence on judicial authorities” from organised crime groups. 

The day will end with a round table discussion with Ronald S Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, on how anti-Semitism and hate crimes against Jews can be prevented and fought in the Nordic region. 

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