Global Research

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It is estimated that since 2012, 300 Swedish individuals have travelled abroad to join  jihadi-groups. About 80 percent of these foreign fighters are associated with ISIS, and a substantial minorty with Jabhat al-Nusra. Some of the extremists have travelled back and forth between the conflict area and Sweden. Almost all of them have cheated the swedish state so as to access financial support under false pretences while working for ISIS. [I]

According to Swedish law, all of these returnees should be charged for having made preparations to commit crimes, as well as accepting an employment to perform illegal acts. Swedish law prohibits all of this. It also bans giving/receiving of payments to commit crimes. Additionally Swedish law also prohibits facilitating crimes. All of this is spelled out in our penalcode (i.e ”Brottsbalken”) chapter 23, paragraph 2.  This in combination with the swedish ban against terrorism (”Lag (2003:148) om straff för terroristbrott” paragraph 4), which broadens the criteria of guilt to include conspiring to commit terrorism – makes the legal case even more clear cut. [II] In accordance with these laws, all returnees should all be prosecuted for preparations to commit murder, enslavement or terrorism – seeing as these are the main activities pertaining to ISIS. All who joined ISIS must have known that they volunteered to commit, or assisted others in committing terrorism. They have also received a salary for their willingness to perform illegal tasks if commanded to.

Whether one can be proven to have committed an act of terror, the standard applied currently, should not be relevant to the criminal activity of preparing or conspiring  to commit a crime, a preparation that is fulfilled by simply traveling to ISIS-controlled territory and joining their ranks.

As a comparison, in 2016 a man was convicted of planning a murder when he traveled to his ex-partner with a knife and an axe in his car. The women was warned by friends of the man, that he harbored murderous intentions. Another man has been convicted for the act of travelling armed only with a hammer, to a place where he wrongfully believed his potential victim lived. The court decided that the potential victims life was never in danger, but still upheld the law by convicting the man for preparing to commit murder.  Yet another person has been convicted of planning to steal a jacket, in this case for cutting of the alarm attached to it. The swedish high court, our supreme judicial authority, has also convicted a man for planning to travell to a bank with the purpose of robbing it. This latest case has the power of legal precedence, seeing as the case was seatled by the supreme court. The case should be a point of guidance for our legal system, a dissenting judge even noted in this case – that local courts have a high level of freedom to interpret at what stage the  ”planing”-phase of a crime can be said to bave begun.[III] Which means that even if the issue of returnees stod on shaky grounds, the courts would still possess the prerogative to make novel interpretations of the law. All these facts point to one conclusion.

According to CNN, ISIS-members had to fill out ”a kind of job application for the terror group”. With the two employment options of being a ”fighter” or ”suicide attacker”. Having said this, we should take the time to look into what ”conspiring to commit crimes”, mentioned in the Swedish ban against terrorism – is supposed to mean. The swedish prosecution agency defines the term as referring to ”A form of preparation which means that a person in consultation with another person decides to commit a crime, attempts to induce another party to commit a crime or takes it upon themself to commit a crime”. [IV]

Ask yourself, how could signing a contract not be considered an act falling under this description? Isn’t the signing of a contract, for the purpose of agreeing to perform a service for an organisation, to take something upon onself? By travelling to a conflict zone and signing up as fighters for a terror group in the area were they are activly commiting their atrocities, all ISIS-returnees have committed far greater preperations for crimes, than all the swedish legal cases just mentioned. Even if a man joined ISIS, only to do non-violent acts in order to earn his paycheck, let us say he simply repaired cars – these vehicles are still used to transport slaves and travel to hotspots to commit murder. In other words he is still facilitating crimes, which as previously mentioned is outlawed as well. Both the law and legal precident, demand that returnees are charged, but the swedish authorities remain passive on the issue.

One thing should be clarified, the swedish government has instituted a specific ban against travelling to join terrorgroups, but this ban was instituted to late, late enough so that most ISIS-returnees can not be prosecuted under this law. Seeing as they travelled before the prohibition was put into effect. Some ISIS-members are prosecuted, but only if they admitt to or can be proven to be guilt of concrete violations  that they as individuals have committed (by which i mean other violations than that the act of preparing crimes, a transgression that they are all guilty of – by definition).

All the major parties in sweden have special spokespersons on the issue of law and order, I have emailed all of these (I couldn’t find our feminist party FI:s spokesperson personal email, so I sent to their general email). Asking if they could file a policereport against all ISIS-returnees. Similarly to how the socialdemocrats womensgroup filed a policereport against a dating site, a site that promoted sugerdejting, something that the womensgroup thought should fall under the current ban against pimping and prostitution. Despit the law not being crystal clear in favour of their interpretation [V]

This womensgroup did not act in an unusual or unproductive way, laws do not exist in a vacuum but must instead be interpreted. Taking a case to court can radically change how laws are applied and how society functions. To take an American example, Lochner v. New York was one simple case that dramatically changed working life of New Yorkers and started what was called the Lochner era. Other parties have also filled police reports on separate occasions [VI]. This dramatic devolpment from taking a single case to court, is of course possible in Swedens own legal system as well. The Swedish retailer ICA once started selling alchohol, in hopes of having the statemonopoly on alcohol overturned by a judge.

The major parties of sweden would have a world to win by trying to bring a single ISIS-returnee to justice. They could accomplish a lot by simply asking tough questions to the judicial branch of government, or more dramatically by appointing new higher ups to our legal institutions (always acting within the limits set up for the executive branch of course, I am not advocating any form of banana republic:ish actions). For we must remember that the swedish prosecutions agencies passivity on the issue, is not an unavoidable state of affairs. In regards to hate speech, the local Malmö branch of the prosecution agencie stated recently in an official document meant to guide its employees in upholding the law, that: ”the separation between what falls under the realm of freedom of speech, and what falls within the realm of that which is harmfull for vulnerable groups, is a judicial question rather than a question of evidence – and should be settled by the courts through convictions. Instead of being decided upon by attorneys choosing which cases not to prosecute”[VII]

Through applying legitimate pressure, our parties could ensure that new guiding documents and policies were produced to guide attorneys in taking the same proactive approach regarding prosecuting on the issue of preparing to commit crimes.

They could help create a new precident that would bring redress to the victims of ISIS, by starting a chain reaction of having all returnees charged. They would stand nothing to lose. Despite this the major parties all ignore this option, most of them even ignored my emails. Except for two spokesperson, one for the Liberal party and one for the Green party. Take note that liberal in the swedish sense is closer to ”classical liberal” or libertarian (i.e ”small goverment”-advocates), rather than the American meaning of liberal  (as being left of center). The spokesperson for the liberal party responded by asking if a prosecution against the ISIS-returnees was even possible. I recommended that he contact the Swedish security police Säpo (I was referred there myself when I tried to take the issue to court) to find out. I also asked him if the liberal party finds it problematic, if indeed it would turn out to be true that the ISIS-returnees were impossible to file a policereport against. He has not responded to my follow up questions.

The Green Party responded by stating that they did not have any need to file a police report. It is unclear whether their spokesperson understood the reasoning behind the Social democrats women’s group. Their spokesperson also insisted that the constitution was not worth changing in this case (this constitution amendment a last case scenario that will be explained in detail below). I asked if her inaction on the issue did not violate the golden rule (the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated), would not she have wanted all necessary measures to be taken if she were one of the victims of ISIS? Would she have found her own response sufficient, if she imagined herself in such a role? She did not respond to this question.

Upon repeated attempts to contact them, the left party finaly responded. In a similar manner to the green party, they chose not to act.  None of the other parties have responded at all.

Another comparison of applied legal interpretation, is worth bringing up. A 79 year old man has been convicted of hatespeech for writing ”fuck allah”, ”fuck islam” and ”arab swines go home”. [VIII] This case illustrates a thought pattern, most likely a subconscious one, that I think is part of the explanation as to why no prosecution has been attempted. There is at play, a form of eurocentrism (to focus strongly on europe or europeans/excluding non-europeans and their experience), a eurocentrism that trivialises the experiences of the people of the third world. The 79 year old man wrote his slogans in view of swedish muslims and swedes with arabic ethnicity, and the legal system was therefore willing to take the case to court. The victims of ISIS are Iraqi and Syrians, and as such the system doesn’t value their rights as highly. Many westerners have come to view violations against people of the third world as ”natural” or inevitable, thereby rendering legal efforts to protect them irrelevant. With that in mind, take a hard looke at this Swedish ISIS-member:

And when it comes to the ethical problems of Ex post facto-laws, one must remember that something being unethical in general does not mean that there are no particular cases in which it is allowed or even a moral duty to perform. And also that all ethical principles are not created equal, some may under extreme circumstances be necessary to temporarily part from in order to protect even higher ideals. The trial against nazi war criminals after world war II has been criticized for making use of Ex post facto-laws [XII]. Should we have allowed the nazis go free simply to uphold this one principle, and thereby forsake all other principles of providing justice for past victims and protecting potential future victims?