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Ex-Police Chief Given Lighter Sentence

Ex-police chief given lighter sentence

The Local - Swedish News in English: 24 Nov 10 14:07 CET

The court of appeal has cut the penalty served to former Uppsala police chief Göran Lindberg to six years for a series of serious sex offences.

Lindberg was sentenced by the district court to six and a half years.

The court of appeal confirmed the convictions against the 64-year-old for aggravated rape, rape, assault, pimping, buying sex and attempting to buy sex.

Lindberg appealed the convictions, seeking to overturn all but the sex buying charges, to which he had admitted. The prosecutor had meanwhile sought an eight year sentence.

The court confirmed the district court ruling that it had been proved that Lindberg raped a 17-year-old girl in January 2007. The girl spent much of the rape tied up, the court concluded.

Lindberg was however found not guilty of having raped the same girl on a prior occasion.

He was also convicted for, among other things, another rape and an assault in connection with buying sex.

Lindberg was found not-guilty, as he was by the district court, on a charge of preparing to commit aggravated rape against a child. This concerned a case involving a 14-year-old girl in Falun in central Sweden. It was while he was on his way to meet the teenager that police apprehended the former chief.

The rape of the 17-year-old was deemed aggravated and Lindberg was ordered to pay damages of 175,000 kronor ($25,000).

Göran Lindberg was principal of the Swedish National Police Academy (Polishögskolan - PHS) from 1989-1997, and was Uppsala county police chief from then until 2006.

The charges against the recently retired senior officer sent shockwaves through the Swedish police force. His seniority and the nature of the charges against him make it the biggest ever scandal in Swedish policing.

The impact of the charges was all the greater due to Lindberg’s reputation as one of the Swedish police’s top authorities on ethics and morals. He frequently gave lectures on topics such as gender equality and spoke out against sexual harassment and bullying.

TT/The Local/pvs (news@thelocal.se)

http://www.thelocal.se/30404/20101124/

Ex-Police Chief Appeals Jail Term for Sex Offences

The Local, 19 Aug 10 14:02 CET |

Göran Lindberg, the former Uppsala county police chief convicted in July for a string of sex crimes, has appealed his six and half year prison sentence.

Lindberg, who faced a total of 23 charges, has appealed against a charge of aggravated rape, two cases of rape, one of assault and one of pimping.

The former senior police officer and principal of Sweden's police training college, was found guilty on all but six of the charges levelled against him, admitting only to the charges of paying for sex.

He was acquitted of one charge of rape, three charges of pimping and one charge of preparing to rape a child.

Prosecutors had wanted Lindberg to serve eight years in jail, but he was sentenced to six and half years, as well as substantial damages and legal expenses. Lindberg has now also appealed to get these financial penalties reduced.

The man's lawyer Karl Harling argued that there are grounds for appeal as the Södertörn district court placed inordinately low demands on the standard of evidence.

Furthermore he argued that the court made an erroneous evaluation of the evidence with regards to the aggravated rape of a 17-year-old girl at a conference centre in Täby in Stockholm. Harling argues that the case is a matter of word against word and maintained that the victim's testimony was muddled and superficial.

The exceedingly detailed nature of Lindberg's testimony has been wrongly interpreted as evidence of it being a reconstruction after the event, Harling furthermore argued, and should instead lend his testimony more credibility.

Lindberg was arrested on January 25th 2010 in Falun, where he was on his way to a meeting with a young girl with whom he had planned a sexual encounter. At this point he had been under police surveillance for some time.

When he was arrested, Lindberg was carrying a bag containing items that could be used to facilitate sexual assaults.

The charges against Lindberg sent shockwaves through the Swedish police service. His seniority and the nature of the charges against him make it the biggest ever scandal in Swedish policing.

The impact of the charges was all the greater due to Lindberg’s reputation as one of the Swedish police’s top authorities on ethics and morals. He frequently gave lectures on topics such as gender equality and spoke out against sexual harassment and bullying.

Two members of the police board in Uppsala County spoke out after the trial, demanding the establishment of a "truth commission" to investigate whether Lindberg committed crimes while he was serving as chief constable, between 1997 and 2006.

Prosecutor Håkan Roswall said that two prostitutes have claimed he was a client while he was still chief constable. The allegations were not investigated because the crimes had exceeded the statute of limitations.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

http://www.thelocal.se/28460/20100819/

 

Ex-Police Chief Sex Trial Attracts Intense Interest

The Local: 29 Jun 10 11:31 CET

The sex crimes trial against former police chief Göran Lindberg has opened on Tueday morning amid intense media interest. Lindberg faces 23 counts of rape, pimping and buying sex.

The defendant appeared resolute when he entered the courtroom and confessed to none of the counts except those related to buying sex. As police chief, Lindberg established a reputation for being a champion of equality.

Lindberg wore a dark blue sweater and light blue shirt. While the prosecution read out paragraph after paragraph of the rape cases and sexual assaults of which he is accused, Lindberg looked down at the table and leafed through his papers.

"He denies the crime and repudiates the individual claims," said his lawyer, Karl Harling.

The only crimes that he acknowledged were the eight counts relating to the purchase of sexual services.

The prosecution requested a closed session for the trial and the court agreed.

"I would be forced to leave out the names and circumstances that make it is possible to identify the individuals," said prosecutor Håkan Roswall.

Lawyer Elisabeth Massi Fritz, who is representing one of the defendants, expects Lindberg to receive a long prison sentence.

"If he is convicted, I believe he may get 10 years or more," she said.

Interest from the public and media is intense in the case which has unravelled in the public eye since Lindberg's arrest in January.

Lawyer Max Fredriksson is representing one of the most vulnerable female victims in the case. He said that his client found the court decision on Monday to waive confidentiality for much of the police investigation extremely difficult.

"She is really not doing well," said Roswall. "Everything is difficult for her right now. Above all, she is afraid that it will be possible to identify her."

Fredriksson also told news agency TT that his client had wanted to report a slew of further incidents, but the prosecution lacked concrete evidence.

"I believe that (the case) is much larger, but it comes down to word against word," he said.

Lindberg is being prosecuted for four rapes, of which one is aggravated, and 10 cases of pimping. He is also suspected of buying sex on seven occasions, as well as one case of an attempted purchase of sexual services from a child.

The rapes were characterised by humiliation and the woman in one of the cases was exposed, according to the prosecution, to "sadistic sexual violence". Lindberg also allegedly chained a 17-year-old girl's arms and legs to a bed and raped her.

Included in the evidence were pictures of the bag that the man carried with him, which had handcuffs, leashes and other sex toys that according to the indictment, he used during the assaults.