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Security Service head named new Swedish police chief

The head of Sweden's Security Service Säpo will leave his role to become the new chief of the Swedish police.

Published: 1 February 2018 13:04 CET
Security Service head named new Swedish police chief
Anders Thornberg (right) and Sweden's justice minister Morgan Johansson. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT

On Thursday Justice Minister Morgan Johansson announced that Anders Thornberg will replace Dan Eliasson from February 15th, after the latter resigned to lead disaster preparedness agency MSB.

Eliasson had faced regular criticism since he was appointed as head of police in 2014.

READ ALSO: Swedish police chief Dan Eliasson resigns

The Swedish police have been under increased pressure in recent years as stretched resources and limited officer numbers make their work increasingly difficult, but Thornberg said he is ready for the challenge.

“I've been a police for 37 years and defended Swedish integrity. I'm humble about the task and know it's a challenge,” he told the media at a press conference called to make the announcement.

Briefly outlining his vision for the organization, Thornberg said he wanted the police to do more preventative work:

“I see a police which moves its position against crime through increased cooperation, nationally and internationally.”

The announcement was welcomed by unions and officers.

“Anders Thornberg has extensive knowledge of police work and can motivate and engage employees. He’s the unifying force the Swedish police needs,” Swedish Police Union chairwoman Lena Nitz said in a statement.

“He's a police at heart, has been out in the field and knows what the police face every day. I think it’s an important pillar for being able to take the right decisions and being able to motive and engage the police force.”

READ ALSO: Working on the front line in Stockholm's vulnerable suburbs

“Anders Thornberg. Welcome. There's work to do, but it feels confidence building and hopeful. From difficulties to success. Also found out that he's an old Södermalm cop. The pieces are falling in place,” the YB Södermalm account, run by officers in the south of Stockholm wrote on Twitter.

Thornberg took over as head of Säpo in 2012, and had worked at the organization since 1986. Before then he was a patrol officer in Södermalm after training in Stockholm.

CRIME

Sweden charges Islamic State woman in landmark trial

Swedish prosecutors said they have brought genocide charges against a woman in the country's first court case over crimes committed by the Islamic State group against the Yazidi minority.

Published: 20 September 2024 07:15 CEST
Sweden charges Islamic State woman in landmark trial

A prosecutor told AFP the 52-year-old woman was accused of keeping Yazidi women and children as slaves at her home in Syria between 2014 and 2016.

She was charged with “genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes” on the grounds that her actions formed part of a broader campaign by the group (IS or Isis) against the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority.

The woman, who is a Swedish citizen, is in jail having already been sentenced by a Swedish court to six years in prison in 2022 for allowing her 12-year-old son to be recruited as a child soldier for Isis.

Senior prosecutor Reena Devgun told AFP that while investigating that case, authorities had received witness reports “that told us that she had kept slaves in Raqqa,” the former stronghold of the Islamic State group in northern Syria, prompting further investigations.

“If you take in Yazidis into your household when you are an Isis member or the wife of an Isis member and treat them this way, I argue that you are participating” in the broader campaign against them, Devgun said.

Devgun said the woman had kept nine people, three women and six children, in her home “as slaves”.

The women and children – who were kept in the house for between 20 days and seven months – were among other things made to perform household tasks.

Devgun said they had also been photographed, which the prosecutor argued “was done with the intention that they would be sold off”.

Evidence had mainly been gathered through witness accounts, from the victims and others that had visited the home at the time.

The crimes, which the woman denies, can carry a life sentence in Sweden.

Stockholm’s District Court said in a statement that the trial was scheduled to start on October 7th and was expected to last two months.

Around 300 Swedes or Swedish residents, a quarter of them women, joined IS in Syria and Iraq, mostly in 2013 and 2014, according to Sweden’s intelligence service Säpo.

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