Policeman and secret source in court in Sweden – claim they were deceived by each other

The trial, which started on Wednesday in Västmanland’s tingsrätt in Sweden, is somewhat unusual. There, both a policeman and an informant stand accused of serious crime, but both claim they were tricked by the other, writes the newspaper Today’s News (DN).

The policeman has previously denied criminal guilt, according to the newspaper.

The matter became public knowledge in January when police patrols uncovered a drug stash of over 100 kilograms of hashish in a garage in Västerås, a town around an hour and a half outside of Stockholm.

On the same day, a criminal went to the police. He said that it was his garage, but that he was an informant for a well-known policeman in the city.

Swedish police can use informants who provide information about other people’s crimes, but if the informant himself is suspected of having committed an offence, it must be reported.

Repeatedly, the source expressed that he himself was involved in drug dealing, but the police officer did not report him. He also did not contact the prosecution, did not write logs from his work with the source and did not refer the source to a program for defectors, according to DN.

He claims that he only realized that the source was the suspected perpetrator when the police found the drugs in the garage.

– My mission is to win the battle against serious organized crime, and if that means having contact with people who can provide important information within the framework of my position, then I have done it, he said in questioning, according to DN.

Now both the source and the policeman consider themselves to have been deceived, by each other. The source believes he acted with the policeman’s knowledge, the policeman says he did not know how involved the source was.

When asked whether the source had contributed information that led to any concrete crime-fighting, the police officer said no.