WikiLeaks: Swedish government 'hid' anti-terror operations with America from Parliament

[Magda Hassan]

WikiLeaks: Swedish government 'hid' anti-terror operations with America from Parliament

The Swedish government asked American officials to keep intelligence-gathering “informal” to help avoid Parliamentary scrutiny, American diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show.


By Andrew Hough, and Christopher Hope 7:00AM GMT 15 Dec 2010




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Mark Stephens speaks to the media outside the City of Westminster Magistrates Court Photo: REUTERS







The secret cables, seen by The Daily Telegraph, disclose how Swedish officials wanted discussions about anti-terrorism operations kept from public scrutiny.

They describe how officials from the Swedish Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a “strong degree of satisfaction with current informal information sharing arrangements” with the American government.

Making the arrangement formal would result in the need for it to be disclosed to Parliament, they said.

They disclose officials’ fear that intense Swedish Parliamentary scrutiny could place “a wide range of law enforcement and anti-terrorism” operations in jeopardy.

Under the heading “teams visits to discuss terrorist screening information exchange with Sweden”, they show Dr Anna-Karin Svensson, Director of the Division for Police Issues, saying the Swedish government would strike controversy if its intelligence methods were disclosed.

• 14 Dec 2010
  

The cable claimed that the "current Swedish political climate makes any formal terrorist screening information agreement highly difficult". Swedish citizens are said to place high value on the country’s neutrality.
"The MOJ team expressed their appreciation for the flexibility of the U.S. side in regards to memorialising any agreement," said the cable.
"They expressed a strong degree of satisfaction with current informal information sharing arrangements with the U.S., and wondered whether the putative advantages of an HSPD-6 agreement for Sweden would be offset by the risk that these existing informal channels, which cover a wide range of law enforcement and anti-terrorism co-operation, would be scrutinised more intensely by Parliament and perhaps jeopardised.
"Dr. Svensson reiterated MFA concerns about the current political atmosphere in Sweden."
It continued: "She believed that, given Swedish constitutional requirements to present matters of national concern to Parliament and in light of the ongoing controversy over Sweden's recently passed surveillance law, it would be politically impossible for the Minister of Justice to avoid presenting any formal data sharing agreement with the United States to Parliament for review.
"In her opinion, the effect of this public spotlight could also place other existing informal information sharing arrangements at jeopardy."
The publication of the new cables, sent to Washington from the American embassy in Stockholm in 2008, came after Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, was granted bail on Tuesday over sexual assault claims in Sweden.
Despite a judge ordering his release with strict conditions and £200,000 guarantee from high profile supporters, the Swedish authorities appealed, meaning the 39 year-old remains behind bars.
Wikileaks claimed the new cables, which discuss terrorist screening programs, added weight to suggestions that Sweden and America were engaged in “back room deals”.
Mark Stephens, Mr Assange’s lawyer, has claimed his client was facing a “show trial” and his case was politically motivated. The Swedish government denies the claims.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, a Wikileaks spokesman, said that the website was “concerned about political influence on the prosecution of Julian Assange”.
“The new revelations contained in the Swedish cables … shed some light on the ferocity of the Swedish prosecutorial process in this case,” he said.
“The prosecutor has said there is ‘no condition’ for bail that will satisfy them.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...ament.html

[Peter Lemkin]

Another 'Democracy' now down the drain into the Sewer of the UK-USA Cesspool.....sad. I hope the Swedish People get very angry and save what remains of their nation....secret intelligence agreements with USA; secret member of NATO; secret plot to do away with Palme; secret assassination of Linde; I guess those Swedish Industrial/Corporate Giants and Oligarchy who were cozy with the Nazis [despite claiming neutrality] are still very much in secret control. The democracy is but a fig leaf....as the Assange affair [and recent false-flag bombing] shows us once again. There is even some belief that Swedish intelligence actively or passively aided in Raoul Wallenberg's demise near the end of WWII......but what is happening now is quite alarming. And it was a Swedish NAZI who recently purchased the Arbeit Mach Frei sign......wake up Sverige!

[Helen Reyes]

Yes, a few months back now Sweden was on "high terror alert" but afaik it wasn't confined to Goteborg, was it? This was right after Swedish prosecutors made the wrong decision about JP Assange and decided to drop the whole matter. Nascent cyberwarfare then broke out with the Operation Payback business. The vague and unexplained threat to Sweden then morphed into a general European high terror alert, and France specifically saw some weird things go down with this, just before the general strike shut the country down. Next, King Saud entered the fray and said Saudi intelligence had tipped off the Europeans that a big plot was about to come to fruition. This was then picked up by Obama/Soetoro just before the congressional elections.

Olaf Palme Gata is a very interesting place for this to be done. I get the impression Palme's assassination had something to do with the US intelligence agencies whose jurisdictional squabble culminated in the explosion over Lockerby. Was Sweden getting in someone's way yet again, and needed reminding of something? Another "current event" in Sweden is massive collusion by Swedish intelligence in unlawful spying by the US on Swedes and others in Sweden, as noted above. Apparently no one is in control of Swedish intelligence anymore, at least not anyone democratically elected in Sweden.

Adding to the general carnival atmosphere in Sweden is the ethnic strife, Islamic gangs running Malmo, Jews being assaulted and driven out, and what is being reported as a Swedish vigilante serial killer targetting "minorities" in Malmo, I believe.

The latest wikileaks capers are over the top and I don't think the operation is legitimate anymore. I made a mistake earlier, and Wayne Madsen was much closer to the truth, which seems to be a limited hangout at best with Assange as the dupe. Therefore it's hard to consider the US targeting Sweden over Assange, unless to lend some sort of street credibility to the whole thing. If Swedish intelligence is out of control, so must Swedish military intelligence be, and this seems to be bourne out by the report that someone in the military warned their friend away from the venue for the spectacle before it happened, if that report is to be credited.

I was under the impression Sweden wasn't a secret NATO member but Switzerland was and is. That doesn't preclude deep "stay-behind" networks in Sweden, networks that were probably activated for Palme.

[David Guyatt]

On Swedish Gladio operations - known as Sveaborg - note that CIA agent, William Colby, was stationed in Stockholm in 1951 to support training of Gladio operations in Sweden and Finland, Norway and Denmark. In 1953, right-winger Otto Hallberg was arrested and police discovered preparations for a Swedish stay-behind army. Hallberg was freed.

Sveaborg was founded in 1941 and, as we might expect, many members fought with the Nazi Waffen SS Nordland division.

Circa 1990, Sveaborg remained eclipsed from public view except on one day a year when it emerges to honour Swedish nazi hero, Gosta Hallberg-Cuutla, in a Stockholm cemetery.

For more see HERE and scroll down to the bottom.

Btw Helen, I am quite positive the US was the sponsor of Palme's assassination.