The public prosecutor wants to deport Latvian thief

Published 25 November 2024 at 16.34

Law & Justice. The Attorney General has today appealed a Court of Appeal judgment to the Supreme Court and demanded that a Latvian citizen be deported for five years because he has committed a large number of thefts over a ten-year period.

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The Latvian man was recently sentenced to one month in prison for shoplifting. The prosecutor requested that the man also be deported with a ban on returning to Sweden for five years, because since 2014 he has been convicted of a further 16 theft-related crimes. The deportation request was rejected by both the district court and the court of appeal.

The public prosecutor has now appealed and wants the man to be deported.

Deportation of EEA citizens may, according to the Aliens Act, only take place for reasons of “public order and security”. Furthermore, factors such as how long the person has been in the country, the person's age, state of health, family situation and more must be taken into account.

The Attorney General writes in the appeal:

“Given AK's past conduct and the aggravating circumstances of the current crime, which suggest that the theft was planned, there are strong reasons to believe that AK will commit future crimes of a repeated nature. It is clear that his conduct constitutes a real, actual and sufficiently serious threat that affects a fundamental social interest, i.e. the right to property, and that the threat clearly goes beyond the social disturbance that each violation of the law entails.”

– Since the man has no established connection to Sweden, but his wife and children are in Latvia, I believe that a deportation is not disproportionate in this case, says Attorney General Katarina Johansson Welin in a statement.

The Attorney General points out that the question is often raised whether there are conditions for deporting EEA citizens who repeat crimes of aggression, each of which has a limited penalty value.

– The Supreme Court's previous rulings on expulsion of EEA nationals does not provide sufficient guidance in such recidivism situations, in my view. Court of Appeal practice is also not uniform. Therefore, I want the Supreme Court to examine the issue, says Katarina Johansson Welin.