The husband refused to testify in favor of Lundin Oil • Persons hired by the company’s consultants also harassed Elizabeth
Stephen Gatlueng Kuoh worked as a radio operator for the then Lundin Oil, in Sudan at the turn of the millennium. In 2017, he was in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, where he heard about the Swedish investigation into international law against two former managers – who denied the charges.
Stephen says that he was subjected to recurring pressure from people with connections to the company, to testify in favor of the Lundin peaks. He finally agreed to meet one of Lundinbolaget’s consultants, in Khartoum.
– They said they wanted me as a witness and that they would make sure that the case is closed down, says Stephen.
He experienced the meeting as threatening and fled the country shortly thereafter. He got in touch with the Swedish prosecutor and instead became a witness against the Lundin peaks.
Elizabeth and the children, remained in Sudan.
– After I had moved, they went on Elizabeth, she had to endure a lot, says Stephen.
Were raped by armed men
Elizabeth repeatedly called her husband and told how people she perceived acted on the Lundinbolaget’s mission, harassed her to persuade Stephen to come back. In the fall of 2018, everything culminated. Elizabeth says that armed men came by car and kidnapped her and the children.
– After a while they stopped the car and dropped the children at the roadside. Then I was alone with four men.
Elizabeth was raped, and severely beaten.
“I’m ashamed of what they did to me,” she says.
People hired by the consultants also harassed Elizabeth
Cold facts have taken part in a leaked material from within Lundinbolaget, which shows how their consultants mapped and spied on Elizabeth’s husband Stephen, even after he moved from Khartoum. The material contains no evidence that the consultants, or anyone else in the company’s management, commissioned to threaten or use violence against witnesses. But, in the consultants’ travel reports, we see how two of the people used by the Lundin consultants to look for Stephen – are the same people who should have harassed Elizabeth, before the rape.
– When the body is subjected to abuse, you never get whole again. I know they did this to me because my husband got away, says Elizabeth.
Elizabeth’s husband Stephen Gatlueng Kuoh refused to testify for the benefit of the Lund Tops.
Elizabeth’s husband Stephen Gatlueng Kuoh refused to testify for the benefit of the Lund Tops.
Photo: TV4
The company’s management knew that witnesses were subjected to serious threats
The leaked material also shows that people in the company’s management, including chief lawyer Henrika Frykman, were on several occasions received information that witnesses were subjected to serious threats in the wake of the Lundin consultants’ work in Sudan and South Sudan. Still, a decision was made to let them continue.
Cold facts have sought the Lundin consultants, who have not returned. Neither Ian Lundin, chief lawyer Henrika Frykman nor any other representative of Lundinbolaget has wanted to put up an interview. In a comment on Kalla facts, they write that the allegations of testimony are basic and that they have always performed their work in accordance with the highest professional and ethical standards.
Elizabeth today lives as a refugee in a neighboring country to Sudan. She still has severe pain in her body.
– I will never be able to have children again, she says, I am a person without value. But I think my testimony can help.
Lund Fall
Who wants to silence those who will testify against the oil billionaire Ian Lundin? Cold facts follow in the perpetrators’ tracks and have access to an unexpected leak.