Tuesday, December 25, 2007

The Swedish Keystone Cops

I wrote the other day that an investigative journalist in Sweden named Nuri Kino had his doubts that the Swedish police were applying their full resources to the investigation of the murder of the Assyrian Christian university professor Fuat Deniz.

The big question is whether the lackluster performance of Sweden’s finest is deliberate, and due to political pressure, or simply routine incompetence.

Now Nuri Kino has stepped up his criticism of the official investigation. According to AINA:

Swedish Police Admit Making Mistakes in Murder Investigation

Fuat DenizSwedish police have admitted they made mistakes in the ongoing investigation of the murder of Assyrian-Swedish researcher Fuat Deniz. More than one week after the fatal stabbing there is still no suspect. Assyrian journalist Nuri Kino, who has scrutinized the methods of the police in Örebro, the Swedish town where the murder took place, has dismissed their approach as unprofessional.

“They have committed one mistake after the other”, he says.

Kino says Fuat Deniz’s office at the Örebro University, where he was a senior lecturer, was not sealed off directly after the murder but cleaned up instead. Important evidence might thus have been destroyed. He also criticizes the police for not offering protection to the family of Dr. Fuat Deniz after the murder.

“We should have sealed off the room directly after the murder,” acknowledged investigation leader Per Jan Eriksson from the Örebro police to Swedish public television SVT. The Örebro police have now offered protection to the family of Dr. Fuat Deniz.
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The police have also failed to interview colleagues of Dr. Deniz who say they have received threats. Nuri Kino has been most perturbed by the unwillingness of the Örebro police to ask for help from experts to examine a tape from a surveillance camera in a store where a man with blood stained hands was spotted some 45 minutes after the murder. The tape is of very poor quality and the Örebro police said it is impossible to identify the man caught on it, but special investigators who have examined the tape announced it is possible to identify the man.

Nuri Kino says it may be already too late.

“Admitting some of their mistakes is good, but critical evidence and crucial time may have been lost due to their incompetence. They have committed more mistakes and they should acknowledge them too”, he says, “the specialized Investigative police must act immediately — not one day from now, not one hour from now — but right away. Each second that ticks away makes it more difficult to find the murderer. The local police in Örebro don’t have the means to find the perpetrator. What is more, most of them have their Christmas holidays and are not working.”

Nuri Kino is one of Sweden’s top investigative journalists and has received several prestigious awards. He has followed the murder of Dr. Fuat Deniz closely and says he has launched his own private investigation of the murder.

The longer the Swedish police remain “on holiday”, the more likely it will seem that Turkish pressure has caused the Swedes to drag their feet.

Are the Swedish police seriously attempting to track down the murderer of Fuat Deniz?


Previous posts on this topic:

2007 Dec 15 The Long Arm of the Assyrian Genocide
    16 Silencing Any Discussion of the Assyrian Genocide
    18 Remembering Fuat Deniz
    19 A Political Murder? Unlikely, Says Swedish Expert
    22 Soft-Pedaling the Murder of Fuat Deniz

5 comments:

History Snark said...

Like so many people in law enforcement (and related fields), it appears the police in Sweden have learned an important lesson: If you don't look, you won't find anything inconvenient.

Papa Whiskey said...

"The dark powers expected to silence Fuat through putting a knife on his throat – not knowing that his voice will only strengthen that of his brothers among future generation Assyrians/Syriacs."

-- Mor Polycarpus Augin, Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church in the Netherlands, at a mass at the Mor Kuryakos Church in Enschede, Netherlands.

Dark powers, indeed. Read about the mass here.

ANTI-ISLAMIST said...

The Swedish language has been enriched with another 'familiar quotation'.
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The police in Örebro before Christmas commented their 'expertize' handling of this case:

"We haven't got any Colombo (Peter Falk) or somebody running around - but our staff is competent."

("Vi har ingen Colombo eller så som springer omkring...")

Holger said...

The one thing with Swedish police, and I know quite a few personally, is that they generally are square headed intellctual lightweights. - There's no way they probably even thought of the possibility that it was a political assasination, since most have no clue about history or politics. That is the truth. Furthermore, and to prove how laughable the Swedish police is, the Chief of Police was invited to the Nobel Festivities this year and was interviewed about what she most looked forward to. Her answer: "The food", but she had stopped to get a burger before the ceremony just to make sure she wouldn't be hungry. Anyone who goes to the Nobel awards for the food should not be the Chief of Police. That's my opinion.

Zenster said...

“We should have sealed off the room directly after the murder,”

In modern parlance, this is known as a BGO (Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious).