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Sweden: France admits wrong man named

01 July 1996

The French Security Police have now admitted that the Algerian citizen Abdelkrim Deneche had been wrongly named as responsible for the bomb attack at the Paris Saint-Michel metro station 25 July last year. He had been mistaken for the another person, Ait Touchent, called Tarek. When the French authorities asked for the extradition of Deneche in 1995, based on an eye-witness statement by a French policeman, the Swedish Supreme Court found that there was conclusive evidence that Deneche was innocent (see Statewatch, vol 5 no 6). Despite this decision the Swedish government, after a request from the Swedish Security Police, decided to put Deneche in custody and finally to expel him, under the Swedish anti-terrorist law. The French police now admit their mistake, but the head of the Swedish Security Police, Anders Eriksson, says the decision to label Deneche as a terrorist as well as the decision to expel him as soon as they can find a country to send him to, remains. Neither the Swedish Security Police nor the Swedish government has ever admitted any mistake, when applying the anti-terrorist law.