– It is a bit more than we have had in recent years, says security police chief Klas Friberg in a TT interview.
But he doesn’t want to talk in terms of success.
” I think it is tragic that we have the situation we have. We have approximately 3,000 people that exists in the extremist environments and which could be prepared to take to violence. Now we have two cases that will show it.
terrortillslaget against several locations in the west of Sweden, and of whether the raid against several people with uzbekiskt origin Sapo carried out in april in Akalla in Stockholm, sweden and Strömsund in Jämtland, sweden. In both cases, it is likely that a terrorist attack has been averted, says Klas Friberg.
Read more: Terrortillslag in Lilla Edet – ”I woke up to the bang.”
– In the latter, we have a criminal investigation that will soon lead to the prosecution where the suspicions related to the preparation of terrorist crimes, and then can you really say it. In the second, it is our opinion that we had an impending terrorist incident and we have gone in and averted it, ” he says.
What the intended targets were, or how many people could have been affected is no he goes on. The suspects have pleaded not guilty.
it is not the number of prosecutions and convictions of terrorist suspects, which determines how effective counter-terrorism is, without it in the first place is to prevent and prevent acts of terrorism before they are put in the work.
– we See that an information is serious, then we shall repel it. Then go to save the life first, not to get a good preliminary investigation and convict someone of a crime – no, then we switch to the former in this case. Now we hope that we have been able to do it in such a way that we both can repel in a good way, but also that we have received enough so that a prosecutor can pursue it here in a preliminary investigation, ” says Klas Friberg.
Read more: Witnesses: the Barrels were worn out at the crackdown in Strömsund
Few have been prosecuted, and even fewer have been convicted, for the preparation or conspiracy to commit terrorist crimes in Sweden in recent years. An example is the deed against Lars Vilks that three people were suspected to have planned in 2011, something that is initially classified as preparation for the terrorist incident. The judgment was in the end sentenced to pay a fine for the violation of the offenses.
is often a problem, but also that the suspects know exactly how to hide their doings and plans, ” says Klas Friberg.
“these people that are involved in thinking and planning, they are trained and schooled in the use of communication tools in such a way that it should be difficult – on the verge to impossible, for the police or the security services of both to get them on the tracks and then find the evidence in their phones and computers that are needed to be able to move on,” he says.
at the same time is just a technical seizure, often the entrance in the investigations, and Säpochefen is deeply frustrated that the important legislative proposals in the area of delay.
” We are very keen to bring about legislation around data storage, for right now, we are tied in that respect. Usually choose the operators to not help us.
2016 have both the police and the secret service much more difficult to quickly obtain information on, for example, where, when and how suspects have communicated with each other. As a result, both suspects can’t be picked up and crime is, according to Friberg.
– We have hundreds of cases where we do not arrive where we want to go forward.
He is also pleased that the international cooperation has improved, and believes that it may have played some role, the profit for the year.
” We have today an international collaboration that not only strategic but operational, and I want to say minutoperativt. Get other security services of anything they deem as serious as we get, on the minute, ” says Klas Friberg.
– It is a sign that it is constant, at level three on the national scale, which means that a terrorist attack can occur. This is why we choose not to lower the terrorhotnivån.
in Addition to the two known cases is likely to have even more attacks have been avoided, claims Säpochefen.
– We have a constantly ongoing process that involves analyzing the about 6,000 notifications that we handle each month around the terrorist incident. In them I am quite sure that we have taken measures which averted, ” he says.
