Published: Less than 40 min ago
Keld René Christensen just a few hours before he was to set out with his boat on the Sound. Photo: PRIVATE
Five years ago, Danish Keld René Christensen disappeared without a trace in Öresund. A few days later, a body washes up in Malmö.
But Swedish police do not make the connection. Instead, the body is placed in a mortuary for two years before being buried in an unmarked grave.
– What the hell are they doing over there anyway? asks René’s sister.
At the beginning of August 2018, 59-year-old Keld René Christensen was having a few beers with a friend in Copenhagen. He was – just like always – wearing a t-shirt, denim shirt and leather vest. They were going out and going by boat. René’s passion in life.
– He started sailing when he was 16. Then he came out to sea with Maersk as a ship’s boy. But he could buy his first boat with his salary, says his sister Hanne Petersen.
In the port, the friend received a call, something was wrong with the dog. He went home.
– René would drive the boat a bit south and then they would meet the next day.
But René never came forward. The next day, the boat was found drifting off southern Zealand. With his leather vest and other clothes neatly folded, according to the sister.
– I suspect that he wanted to cool off and jumped in, but we will never know for sure.
What is known is that a man wearing swimming trunks floats ashore at the Öresund Bridge on the Swedish side ten days later. Then the search has ended several days ago. Despite efforts with, among other things, Danish and Swedish helicopters, they failed to find René.
– We are looking for a needle in a haystack, said the officer on duty at the Danish defense to the Danish news agency Ritzau at the time.
No one made the connection that the unknown man in swimming trunks was René. He was read in a mortuary in Malmö. For two years.
Buried in an unmarked grave
On September 26, 2020, it was time to move René. Two years in the morgue was enough. A funeral home picked him up and he was buried in an unmarked grave in the Eastern cemetery in Malmö. At the same time, the family had given up hope that René would be alive, but still hoped that his body would be found.
– I was on news sites in Denmark and Sweden almost every day. Every time a body was found I sent the link to my daughter. Could it be René?
But René was in a coffin in Malmö. He was wanted on Interpol, but still no one had made the connection with the unknown man in swimming trunks. Until about two weeks ago. German police had found the connection in Interpol’s database, contacted the Swedish police, who in turn contacted the Danish police. Suddenly, two constables stood and knocked on René’s daughter’s door. He was found, the family could breathe a sigh of relief.
– You are relieved, of course. It has been five years. But then you start to wonder. How could it have taken so long? He can’t have been that hard to identify. Then you think: “What the hell are they doing over there anyway?”, says Hanne Petersen.
The Swedish police: “Didn’t know what we were going to do”
The family contacts the police in Malmö. They want to know what happened. They receive the answer via email from the investigator who handled the case.
“It took too long before all our investigations were completed and this is partly due to the fact that myself and my former head of preliminary investigation did not know what to do”
“Then something also apparently went wrong when another department would later post the notice, with the information about what we had on your father, on Interpol’s website.”
To find out where the body is buried and how they can get him home to Denmark, they must contact the funeral home.
Error in communication
Åsa Nilsson, local police area manager for Malmö north says that the case was initially handled according to routines, but that communication broke down between the police departments.
– Mistakes have definitely been made here, it is extremely tragic. Danish police have not been given access to the data. We really regret this.
It is about the fact that the international request to Interpol did not proceed in the right way.
– Those who have handled this case have been convinced that it went away. When you don’t get a hit after a certain time, you need to manage the body. Then you do it like this.
It will be expensive
The funeral home has shown where René is buried, but told me at the same time that it will be expensive. He is to be exhumed, cremated and shipped over to Denmark and then spread across the Öresund, according to his wish.
– As I understand it, we have to pay for it ourselves and it will be violently expensive. But it is the police in Malmö who made a mistake?, says Hanne Petersen.
What do you think of the Swedish police after this?
– I can understand that things can go wrong. But I think this is so serious. There have been several opportunities to identify him. Both when he was found and when he was taken from the morgue. But you have not so much as pressed a button. It took German police to discover it.