The accusations can be troublesome for the police

 

Kim Eriksson Sirawan

Sentenced to death Kim's accusations are troubling for Swedish police

Oisin Cantwell

News columnist

This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.

Updated 15.17 | Published 13.20

Kim Berglund's own photos from inside the Thai prison.

What could be the biggest scandal in Swedish legal history drags on at a leisurely pace in the Stockholm District Court.

Were Swedish police involved in a plot that led to Kim Berglund being sentenced to death?

I understand that the question sounds like something that has been picked up on a site in the undergrowth of the net where various conspiracy theorists spend their days pondering whether Palme is alive and whether it was the CIA or the KGB that spread covid-19.

The thing is, however, that Kim Berglund and the lawyers who help him, lawyer Sebastian Scheiman and the retired state prosecutor Nils-Eric Schultz, have documentation that is extremely troublesome for the Swedish police.

He has sued the Swedish state for SEK 44 million, but before we delve into the legal adventures, a quick recapitulation of the background is needed, even if it has already been told a number of times in newspapers, radio and television.

In the summer of 2010, Kim Berglund, who at the time was calledKim Eriksson Sirawan, Kim Eriksson Sirawan, was arrested by the police in Thailand.

Kim Berglund in Thailand. Photo: Scandasia

He was on the run from a three-year prison sentence in Sweden for serious doping offences, lived in a house outside Pattaya and lived lavishly by selling anabolic steroids online.

Thai police found a drug lab in Berglund's garage and before he knew it he had been sentenced to death.

A sentence that was commuted to life: Berglund spent nearly nine years in a Thai prison under conditions that have been documented as torture-like.

70 inmates in a 5x15 meter cell, two bowls of rice per day, 24/7 light, torture, executions in front of inmates.

In 2019, Berglund was extradited to Sweden to serve the rest of the sentence, but two years later he was released.

He has always claimed that he was the victim of a plot. That a man he had become acquainted with and who moved into his house in Thailand was in fact an infiltrator sent by the DEA, the US federal drug enforcement agency.

The Swedish National Criminal Police is also alleged to have been involved in a corner when the new acquaintance, according to Berglund, built up the laboratory in which narcotics were produced.

All of this would have sounded more like a rambling series on Netflix than reality if it weren't for the material that is now in the district court awaiting trial.

I won't bore you with all the details, the pieces in this lawsuit are many, but there is interesting information from a closed preliminary investigation into gross misconduct in the case.

At the time, the National Investigation Agency, now NOA, had very real contact with a chemist who gave information about Berglund.

At their disposal, the legal team behind the lawsuit also has payments from the Swedish police to the chemist and evidence that he left and arrived in Arlanda on dates that are interesting in the soup.

And according to documentation from the Department of Justice in the United States, the DEA and the Swedish National Criminal Investigation Department together with Thai authorities investigated Berglund's alleged production of methamphetamine.

In the Stockholm district court, submissions and documents have now been sent back and forth and the court has requested additions and asked questions.

JK, in this case the state's defense attorney, has requested and been granted a five-week reprieve from answering charges.

A month's postponement is a long time in contexts like this. This leads me to suspect that preparations for a settlement offer may quietly be underway.

Which in itself would not be the least bit surprising.

The last thing the state needs is for the outrageous accusations to turn out to be true.
 
That the Nationl Crime Agency was part of a plot that led to a Swedish citizen being sentenced to death.

          

Here, Kim Berglund lands on Swedish soil at Arlanda airport after eight years in prison in Thailand. Photo: Peter Wixtröm