The Baker, The Guns, and The Bureaucratic Circus
Hello, ladies and gents! Buckle up for a story that’s as bizarre as seeing a pigeon wearing a tuxedo! We’ve got a baker who’s turned into an unwitting participant in the crime drama of the century – and it’s happening right in sunny Sweden, or what we like to call “the land of mixed meatballs and meticulously organized IKEA shelves.” Let’s dive into the quirky world of Joe Koutani, a man who perhaps just wanted to knead dough and ended up kneading some serious trouble!
The Setup: Our Hero the Baker
Now, Joe Koutani wasn’t just your average baker; oh no! He was the snitch of the Navestad district. For two years, he was known for his piping hot pastries and cold hard tips on gang activities. Sounds like the plot of a movie where delicious croissants come with a side of crime fighting, right? But alas, it wasn’t all sweet dough – Koutani found himself in a sticky situation. He became the baker who was harboring not just flour but firearms because, let’s be honest, nothing says “welcome to the bakery” like a gun in the basement! And who wouldn’t want to store explosives next to the cinnamon rolls?
Jailed for Doing the Right Thing?
So what happened next? Well, it seems our friend Koutani became something of a hot potato. Prosecutor Ellen Gyberg Ek thought it best to prosecute him for aggravated weapons offense for accommodating these gangsters in his cozy little bakery basement. But, hold your horses! The court dismissed the indictment faster than a soggy baguette in a rainstorm! Why? Because, surprise surprise, our baker was deemed a “good citizen” who was actually trying to curb crime. Talk about being caught between a loaf and a hard place!
The Bureaucratic Bungle
Now, as they say, bureaucracy moves at the speed of a sloth on vacation. And here, dear readers, we encounter the grand farce of public service! Prosecutor Gyberg Ek finds herself in a comical conundrum. You see, Koutani is playing hide and seek, and the bureaucratic machinery is grinding air, sending letters to 284 addresses miles away from where he actually is. The poor prosecutor might as well send a carrier pigeon – it might have better luck!
There’s something tragically hilarious about watching government bodies sending requests to each other like a game of hot potato. “Nope, we don’t have his contact details. Try asking the next guy!” It’s like watching a bunch of people frantically searching for lost keys in a dark alley – you can’t help but laugh and cringe at the same time!
Post-och Inrikes Tidningar to the Rescue!
The courtroom drama escalates. The prosecutor must resort to the ultimate strategy – a public announcement in a newspaper that sounds as thrilling as watching paint dry! The world’s oldest continuously published newspaper – which smells faintly of musty history – is now on the case! They are on the lookout for Joe Koutani. Just imagine the headline: “Baker on the Run – Last Seen Baking Something Sinister!”
In classic Swedish fashion, the whole endeavor is wrapped in a layer of solemn determination mixed with absurdity. We’ve got a baker in hiding, law officials in a tizzy searching for him while he holds the secret to curbing organized crime. It’s almost poetic – a bit like Strindberg’s “A Half Sheet of Paper” turned upside down!
The Closing Argument
So, where does this leave us? A baker, who attempted to be a good citizen, tossed into the absurd world of crime and punishment, leaving us to ponder: are we truly protecting the good or chasing our own tail? In the end, we might find the real crime here is the bureaucratic mumbo jumbo that has left justice hanging by a thread – or a string of dough!
To Mr. Koutani, we salute you! May your breads rise high and your secrets remain low. To the bureaucratic bodies, well, good luck finding him – if only you had a map and a sense of direction! Until next time, keep your pastries sweet and your gangsters at bay!
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full screen The local police knew Koutani well. For a couple of years, he had tipped off drug trafficking and other crime in the Navestad district. Photo: Jurek Holzer/TT / Svenska Dagbladet
The hunt for the baker in Norrköping who secretly informed the police about notorious gang criminals continues.
Chamber prosecutor Ellen Gyberg Ek has given up on the fact that baker Joe Koutani belongs in prison.
So he is the man who told the police that gangsters forced him to store two guns and explosives in his basement storage room. Koutani agreed to store the weapons because the gang leader threatened that things could “go bad” for his family.
The local police knew Koutani well. For a couple of years, he had tipped off drug trafficking and other crime in the Navestad district.
Prosecutor Ellen Gyberg Ek decided to prosecute – Joe Koutani! – for aggravated weapons offense because he kept the gangster’s weapon in his basement storage room.
But the district court dismissed the indictment in its entirety on the grounds that “Joe Koutani is a good citizen of society with no intentions of committing crimes for his own sake. On the contrary, it has emerged that he contributed to curbing crime in the Navestad area…”
Koutani was immediately protected in the police’s personal protection program and has since been living under a new identity with his wife and daughter. They have had their lives shattered because he helped society against organized crime. It is a secret whether the family lives in Sweden or somewhere else.
Prosecutor Gyberg Ek, who wants to have Koutani convicted in the Court of Appeal, has had an unexpected problem.
Since the Koutani family lives with a protected identity in a secret location, the prosecutor does not know where to send the service.
Jakten på Koutani is, in good Swedish civil servant tradition, documented in the Court of Appeal’s register. There is a diary sheet with 18 file attachments that show step by step how the legal machinery is looking for a man who is protected by – the legal machinery.
Can other authorities help? Requests are sent to the Probation Service, the Correctional Service, the Tax Agency, the Social Insurance Agency, the Swedish Crown Enforcement Agency, the Migration Agency, the Norrköping District Court and the Police Authority. One by one, the answers trickle in:
I can’t see that the client has been current with us, writes an administrator at Frivården.
The person became a Swedish citizen on 20/04/2017 and after that there are no updated contact details, the Swedish Migration Agency informs.
Unfortunately, we do not have any information about address, phone number or email address, replies the Kronofogden.
Dutiful officials strike in their registers but are met by the great emptiness. That’s how it should be. Society has built a wall of silence around the Koutani family so that the gangsters will not be able to exact revenge. At the same time, the mills of bureaucracy continue to grind air. Letters are sent back and forth. A delivery man is ready to go, ready to serve, but is told that the person he is supposed to serve has gone up in smoke.
The prosecutor and the Court of Appeal have one last option:
Post- och Inrikes Tidningar, the world’s oldest continuously published newspaper which has now been demoted to a digital page for announcements. On June 18, the Göta Court of Appeal published an announcement that it is seeking Joe Koutani for service of an injunction. The order can be collected from the court’s office, Hamngatan 11, Jönköping. Expedition time 08.00-16.00.
In 1903, August Strindberg published the short story “A half sheet of paper”. It is one of Swedish literature’s most famous works, only two pages long. On these two pages, Strindberg captures a love, a marriage, a tragedy and rediscovered happiness.
I’m thinking about “Half a sheet of paper” when I read the diary sheet from the prosecutor’s and Göta Court of Appeal’s hunt for Joe Koutani. The diary is also on two pages and that too captures a cosmos, a cosmos of bureaucratic futility and misguided zeal.
– We are looking for Joe Koutani! shouts the chorus of officials.
– He is in a secret location!
– Why! shouts the chorus of officials.
– The police protect him!
– We want to put him in chains! occurs to the chorus of prosecutors.
– And the police protect his life and freedom!
– We don’t care if the baker has clean flour in the bag! He will go to prison even if we have to send a thousand letters! shout the prosecutors.
