This is how the investigation against Mbappé can continue • Jens Lapidus: Up to the French police
The world star and soccer player Kylian Mbappé is reasonably suspected, the lower level of suspicion, of rape against a woman, according to information to TV4 Nyheterna.
The incident occurred, according to the report, last Thursday at the Bank Hotel in central Stockholm, where Mbappé stayed during his short visit to Sweden.
When the police drew up the report of rape and started the preliminary investigation, Mbappé had already left Sweden on a private plane to Madrid. The prosecutor leading the case is tight-lipped but says that several investigative measures are underway.
Can give orders for mobile emptying
Per Hedvall is bureau chief at the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s unit for international legal cooperation, something that becomes relevant when suspects are abroad. He cannot comment on the individual case, but describes the process in general in similar situations.
The head of the agency says that when the designated perpetrator is within the EU, but outside of Sweden, there are normally two ways for the prosecutor to continue the investigation.
– If there is a preliminary investigation in Sweden and a Swedish prosecutor needs to collect evidence from another EU state, something called a European investigation order is issued. It is the prosecutor who issues it and it is then sent to the other state. Then this is enforced by the other state’s authorities, says Per Hedvall.
Among other things, it could be that the prosecutor wants access to material in the suspect’s mobile phone or that an interrogation is to be held.
– The investigation measures that would normally have been taken in Sweden, if someone was in Sweden, says Per Hedvall.
Then Mbappé can be called for
If the prosecutor wants the suspect handed over to Sweden, it is required that a Swedish court detains the person in absentia, which is the other way out. It is not until then that the prosecutor can either summon the person or issue a European Arrest Warrant against him.
– If the prosecutor decides on a wanted person within the EU, the prosecutor also issues a European arrest warrant. If the prosecutor knows where the suspect is, the prosecutor can choose to just issue a European Arrest Warrant and send it directly to that country. Then it is up to the authorities of that state to decide whether the suspect should be handed over to Sweden to be tried here.
A reasonably suspected person may only detained if the court considers it “extremely important”. Usually people are otherwise detained on probable grounds, the higher level of suspicion. No degree of suspicion is required for an investigation order, says Hedvall.
Lapidus: Up to French police
Jens Lapidus, legal expert and former lawyer, says in TV4’s Efter fem:
– They will probably want to hold an interview with Kylian Mbappé as well. Then of course the big question becomes, we all remember Assange, how to hold that interrogation? Is it something the police absolutely want to keep with him on the spot? Most of the time, you want it in the case of slightly more serious suspicions. Because you don’t just want to ask verbal questions, but see how someone behaves in body language.
Lapidus states that Swedish police can request an interview via phone or video link with the soccer star.
– Should he refuse it and this is an interrogation that the Swedish police deems necessary to hold. Then you can end up in a situation where you have to issue a European arrest warrant and then it will be up to the French police to execute it. That’s what happened to Assange, and then he fled to the Ecuadorian embassy to escape the arrest warrant.
Mbappé denies the allegations.