Arms smuggling scandal triggers Swedish inquiry

Press, 6 March 1987, Page 6

Arms smuggling scandal triggers Swedish inquiry

Stockholm By Andrew Steele of Reuters (through NZPA) The Swedish Government said yesterday it had started an inquiry into a multl-million dollar arms smuggling scandal which independent . peace groups say included the supply of hundreds of anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.

Peace groups and Swedish newspapers have accused previous and present Governments of knowing about illegal weapons shipments in the early 1980 s from Bofors, the country’s biggest arms maker, to warring Middle East States. I

The subject was on the agenda of the policymaking Foreign J Affairs Council, after which the Prime Minister,4 Ingvar Carlsson, denied

his Government had knowledge of or involvement in the alleged arms deals. “It’s obvious we knew nothing of the affair. If it happened, it was against Swedish law. Of course we knew nothing,” he said.

Mr . Carlsson announced that every one of the Robot 70 antiaircraft missiles manufactured by Bofors would be tracked from factory to destination in an attempt to clear up the smuggling charges.

The Government inquiry was announced in a statement by the Cabinet Office yesterday signed by the Prime Minister. The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, the world’s oldest peace group, announced yesterday it had evidence the Robot 70 was being used

in Iran. The chairman, Lars Angstrom, told Swedish radio that the extent of the alleged smuggling was so great that successive Swedish Governments were bound to have known about it “If they did not know about it the Foreign Trade Ministers of the time must quite simply have been incompetent” he said. The S.P.A.S. allegations have been backed by the prestigious London-based Institute of Strategic Studies, and yesterday the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute published a report listing Sweden as a supplier of arms to Iran.

Swedish law expressly forbids weapons exports to warring nations, but S.F.A.S. says the law was dodged by sending the

arms via Singapore.

Bofors has until now steadfastly denied the export of arms to Iran, but Anders Carlberg, managing director of the explosives firm, Nobel, told reporters he could not guarantee that the company had not smuggled arms to Iran.

“Grave suspicions hang over our company to this effect and this is deeply regrettable,” he said.

Nobel has declined to make further comment until the release next month of a report into the affair, now being examined by prosecutors, which was compiled after a two-year probe by a special team of customs officers.

The prosecutors have already officially cautioned eight Nobs salesmen.