Published 14 May 2024 at 16.23
Law & Right. The Attorney General has appealed a Court of Appeal judgment and demanded that a man be convicted of a serious crime against the Knife Act for carrying a laser pointer.
Share the article
TwittraShare
The man was charged for a serious offense against the Knife and Other Dangerous Objects Prohibition Act (Knife Prohibition Act) for having a powerful laser pointer in a public place. The laser beam from such can destroy vision if directed at an eye.
Both the District Court and the Court of Appeal dismissed the prosecution with reference to the fact that a laser pointer cannot be considered to be such an object covered by the Knife Prohibition Act. The courts referred to a previous judgment from the Supreme Court that referred to a ball club.
The Attorney General states that the courts interpret the ban as, apart from knives and other stabbing weapons, only objects that can be used to hit or crush that can fall under the legislation.
– I do not agree with that interpretation. The statements made by the Supreme Court in the previous judgment do not exclude, in my view, that other objects that can be used as weapons may also fall under the Knife Prohibition Act, says Attorney General Katarina Johansson Welin in a statement.
According to the Attorney General court practice is not uniform as to whether strong laser pointers can fall within the knife law's scope. There are also examples of sentences where people who used strong laser pointers were sentenced for, for example, molestation and assault.
The prosecutor writes in his appeal:
“In light of the extreme development of violence society has suffered from in recent years, it is very unfortunate in my opinion that an object that can obviously be used as a weapon in serious crimes should be freely possessed by e.g. serious criminals without the judiciary being able to intervene against the possession itself importance for the management of the application of the law that the Supreme Court examines my appeal.”