Summary A formal complaint

Regarding the Swedish legal cases concerning Ulf Wiberg and the company Teledata. The Swedish businessman Ulf Wiberg, residing in Gothenburg (Sweden), was in 2003 sentenced by the Swedish upper court (Göta Hovrätt) to a sentence of five years imprisonment for alleged participation in a so called “carousel”-fraud scam. Ulf Wiberg was sentenced for tax crime, fraud, and for false accounting. The case however raises serious concerns about how justice was carried out in this particular case. The following issues are of specific interest in the legal procedures of Ulf Wiberg: Mr Wiberg was sentenced for an alleged tax crime that does not exist in Swedish law, namely “tax evasion in regard to VAT-taxes”. It was established in the cases that real buy and sell transactions had taken place that Mr Wiberg had accounted for completely correctly. He had correctly paid the VAT-taxes to the buyer in accordance with likewise correct invoices. Despite these facts the courts decide to make a “see-through” of the formally correct circumstances to be able to sentence Mr Wiberg for the crimes stated above. A “see-through” in Swedish tax-law is only permitted if it is expressively stated by law, as it is in the Swedish “Law against Tax Evasion” (law 1995:575). This is the only Swedish tax-law that permits a “see-through”, but this law does not regulate behaviours related to VAT-taxes. The courts have thereby made an illegal “see through” of the transactions and accounting made by Mr Wiberg in his company Teledata, thereby denying Teledata a tax reduction of about 26 million SEK, and sentencing Mr Wiberg to a long time of imprisonment. Concerns are also raised in the criminal case against Mr Wiberg as he in some instances seem to have been sentenced without evidence. The only proof in two instances of Mr Wibergs alleged participation in a “carousel”-fraud was two retracted statements of two co-accused people that Mr Wiberg bought some goods from, Öyvind Andresen and Kennet Nordqvist. Andresen did state that Mr Wiberg was in fact involved in the affairs of Andresen’s company, but only after the police and prosecutor had promised to “go easier on him” if he would say that so was the case. The promise of this “deal” from the police, offered while Andresen and his teenage son were confined in pre-sentence prison, was confirmed by Mr Andresens lawyer at the time under oath during the trials. During the trials Andresen had retracted that statement and denied throughout the trials that Mr Wiberg had anything to do with Andresen’s company nor with him not paying his VAT-taxes. Despite lack of any other proof indicating Mr Wiberg’s involvement in Andresen’s business, Mr Wiberg was sentenced as the main responsible in this, all entirely based upon this retracted statement given once during police hearings, that later was recited in court. All this can be read in the sentences from the lower and higher courts (Tingsrätten and Hovrätten). The same is true about Kennet Nordqvist and his two companies. Mr Wiberg was sentenced entirely based on a retracted statement Mr Nordqvist gave while interrogated by the police. Nordqvist denied throughout the court proceedings that Wiberg was involved in any tax-fraud with Mr Nordqvists companies, and stated that he “said what the police wanted to hear just to avoid pre-sentence imprisonment”. My conclusion after thorough investigations is that Mr Wiberg by great certainty has been wrongly sentenced to prison for serious crimes when he indeed should have been acquitted.           This situation is not acceptable in a state with a democratic rule of law like Sweden. The fatal errors made during the cases concerning Mr Wiberg and the company Teledata are horror-examples of wrong and arbitrary exercise of power by a court of law. _______________________ Erik Wahlberg Swedish Attorney at Law (LLM)