Ethiopian team disappears after Gothenburg football tournament
Twenty Ethiopians who were part of a youth team playing in the Gothia cup football tournament in Gothenburg disappeared on the day of the final in what police suspect is a voluntary case of illegal migration.
The Gothia Cup, or World Youth Cup featured teams from 77 nations this year, and four teams from Ethiopia.
According to Swedish police of of the hosts at the school where 20 Ethiopians connected to one of the teams were staying discovered on the day of the final that the team living at the school, and several of the adults accompanying them had disappeared.
Police have confirmed that the group have not returned to Ethiopia and believe that they disappeared on their own accord.
"There is no indication that anything illegal lies behind this, such as people smuggling or something similar," said Ellinor Halldin at the unit for missing people in the police's western region.
Swedish vocabulary: ett frivilligt försvinnande – a voluntary disappearance
Teenage boys detained for suspected murder
Three teenage boys have been placed in pre-trial detention in connection with the fatal shooting of a man in Hässelby, Western Stockholm on Friday.
The suspects are between 15 and 19 years old, and are being held on "probable cause", the highest level of suspicion.
Police were called to a residential distract at 9pm on Friday to find the man lying injured on the ground. He was taken to hospital in a helicopter ambulance, but his life could not be saved. The three teenagers were seized on Saturday.
Swedish vocabulary: sannolika skäl – probably cause
Boy charged for driving A-tractor at 150 km/hr
A sixteen-year-old boy has been charged for aggravated reckless driving after he drove 150km/hr on a road with a maximum speed limit of 70 km/hr in Fjärås, Halland.
A-tractors in Sweden are usual cars, that have had their engines swapped out for tractor engines, and are as a result classed as tractors. They are only allowed to be capable of driving at much 30 km/h, meaning the boy was driving at five times the allowed speed.
Police reportedly tried to stop the boy who hit a roe deer, the body of which a hunter later found in two separate parts.
The police chase continued for around a kilometer after which the boy stopped.
According to police, neither the boy or his passengers had seatbelts. The boy has been charged for aggravated reckless driving. He is pleading guilty to reckless driving, but rejects the claim that it was aggravated or serious.
Swedish vocabulary: vårdslöshet – recklessness
Notorious Swedish criminal jailed for major cocaine smuggling operation
The infamous Swedish criminal Jonas Falk was jailed for nine years for smuggling over two tonnes of cocaine from South America on Tuesday, in the latest in a long series of convictions.
Falk, 53, was convicted on the basis of chat messages on the platform Sky ECC, which European police hacked in 2021.
"The content of the messages shows that the man took an active part in the planning and implementation of all four charges and that the activities were organised to conduct large-scale drug trafficking," the judge in the case, Göran Lundahl, said in a press release.
The crime was carried out between 2020 and 2021 between Spain, Colombia, and Costa Rica and in international waters.
Falk was arrested in August 2024 in Spain and extradited to Sweden the same year, where he was found guilty last year for involvement in a blackmail operation targeting the banker Joachim Kuylenstierna.
Falk is sometimes known as 'the Playa Swede' due to the luxury lifestyle he had lived in Sitges, south of Barcelona, and his involvement in the so-called 'Playa case'.
Swedish vocabulary: storskalig – large scale
Sweden launches first national strategy to strengthen psychological defence
Sweden’s government has launched its first ever national strategy for psychological defence, which aims to increase coordination between government agencies to make the country more resilient against foreign disinformation and attempts to undermine public trust.
“Our willingness to defend ourselves is in our minds,” Sweden's Minister for Civil Defence, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, said in a statement. “States and state-like actors are constantly trying to undermine confidence in Swedish society. Sweden and the Swedish population must be able to withstand those who seek to harm Sweden and Swedish interests by weakening trust in our society and creating division.”
The strategy presents four overarching goals for psychological defence: working against improper disinformation; strengthening the public's willingness to defend the country, improving the media's preparedness and its ability to reach the public, international cooperation, particularly within the EU and Nato.
It also aims integrate psychological defence more closely with Sweden's overall system of total defence – which includes both civil defence and the armed forces.
Swedish vocabulary: påverkanskampanjer – influence or disinformation campaigns