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The Ombudsman directs criticism at the police after a search of an apartment in Halmstad in 2021. No preliminary investigation was started when the police entered the apartment – it was only started afterwards, reports Hallandsposten.
The apartment owner only found out later that the police had been inside the apartment and, among other things, photographed the contents of the refrigerator, where there were medicines.
The information differs on how the apartment owner was informed: According to the responsible police inspector, it happened in a phone call five days later, but according to the apartment owner, he only received the information when a person who lived in the apartment was charged and he found photos from the apartment in the preliminary investigation.
“Is it that simple in Sweden that a police patrol can search a house without notifying the tenant, even though I am not a suspect or that there is a decision from the prosecutor?” wrote the man in his report to the Ombudsman for Justice (JO).
The purpose of the house search was to investigate a suspected civil registration crime following a tip that too many people were registered at the address. The tip had come in two months earlier and thus it cannot be said that the case was urgent, states the JO in its decision.
JO is also critical of the police’s lack of documentation, which has led to it being difficult to review the decision to search the house afterwards. JO also believes that “it appears to be clearly doubtful” that classified information from the preliminary investigation was later shared with both Försäkringskassan and the municipal housing company HFAB.