Ten of the eleven defendants were convicted in the district court for involvement in serious environmental crimes linked to the waste company Think Pink's operations in Central Sweden from 2015 to 2020 - Sweden's largest environmental case to date.
The verdicts have been appealed and when the main hearing in the Land and Environmental Court of Appeal at Svea Court of Appeal begins on Tuesday, all of them are demanding to be acquitted. At the same time, the prosecution wants to see tougher sentences for most of them, as well as a conviction for TV personality Leif-Ivan Karlsson, the only one to be acquitted in the district court.
"In the district court, we had demanded a significantly higher sentence for most of those involved than they received," says prosecutor Linda Schön.
The exception was Fariba Vancor, for many years the public face of the hyped waste company, who was sentenced in the district court to 6 years in prison for serious environmental crimes in 19 cases. The other defendants received shorter sentences.
At the appeal hearing, the court will consider largely the same evidence as the district court, although some new hearings are planned. A total of 82 hearing days are planned and the huge trial is expected to last until May next year.
In a parallel trial, Fariba Vancor and a designated ringleader in the Think Pink scandal were convicted last week of economic crimes at the company. Vancor was sentenced to an additional year and six months in prison, while the man was sentenced to four months in prison.
Leif-Ivan Karlsson was simultaneously sentenced to a suspended sentence for economic crimes connected to the cruise ship Baltic Star.
The indictment against the eleven people in the Think Pink scandal is the largest environmental crime case ever brought before a Swedish court. The preliminary investigation consists of around 50,000 pages.
According to prosecutors, the defendants are behind the illegal dumping of hundreds of thousands of tons of waste at 21 locations in central Sweden between 2015 and 2020. The waste, mainly construction and demolition waste, was supposed to be sorted but was crushed and piled up or buried. It has been left near water protection areas, unprotected stormwater wells, homes and coastal protected areas, among other places.
The locations covered by the indictment are located in 15 municipalities. These are Botkyrka, Eskilstuna, Flen, Gullspång, Haninge, Huddinge, Håbo, Laxå, Norberg, Norrtälje, Skövde, Strängnäs, Uppsala, Västerås and Östhammar.
The Södertörn District Court ruled in its judgment that serious environmental crimes had been committed at 19 of the 21 locations covered by the indictment. Ten of the eleven defendants were convicted. The longest sentence was given to Fariba Vancor, founder of the company, who was sentenced to six years in prison.
