Sweden forwards tourist case to higher-level assessment

Sweden has forwarded the case to higher prosecution authorities of three Chinese tourists allegedly brutally treated by police after the Chinese Ambassador questioned the result of the first round of prosecution assessment.

The Swedish prosecution department will treat the Ambassador’s complaint about police treatment of Chinese tourists “as an appeal” and will “send the case to a higher prosecutor,” Swedish prosecutor Mats Ericsson was quoted in Chinese as saying by Shanghai-based news website thepaper.cn on Tuesday.

Without defining the higher prosecutor, the report said that he or she makes his own independent assessment of the case, Ericsson said in a statement to thepaper.cn on Tuesday.

Chinese Ambassador to Sweden Gui Congyou questioned the result of a previous assessment conducted by Swedish prosecutors when interviewed Monday by Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet.

Previously Stockholm prosecutors confirmed with the Global Times that there were no criminal acts found before they decided to drop the investigation.

Gui said he could “barely understand the statement” and asked if Swedish laws and government are “disrespectful to human rights and honor,” the official China News Service reported on Tuesday.

A Chinese tourist and his parents were reportedly thrown out of a hostel by police and taken to a cemetery in Stockholm on the early morning of September 2.

It is unknown whether the tourist will be involved in the next investigation. He failed to respond when reached by the Global Times on Wednesday.

“It was at least not humane and improper for the police to drop and leave people in an isolated place at night,” Li Yunlong, a professor of international strategic studies at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

According to the tourist, he asked if he could buy some cookies and stay longer in the hostel lobby until he found another place to stay, but was still rejected by the hostel staff.

He was finally taken out of the hostel by police, he told the Global Times on Sunday. He refused to be fully named.

The tourist called for a full release of the video and audio recordings in the hostel and the police vehicle where his parents were allegedly brutally treated by police.

The hostel manager said there were no surveillance cameras in the lobby and so it was impossible to review police behavior.