“It’s like watching a movie. We see quite clearly that it is a Range Rover that passes at extremely high speeds. Suddenly car parts hit us. A wink later, everything is on fire. We are rolling on, because we do not want to see this. “
This is how a witness describes the fatal crash on the E4 outside Markaryd on October 3 last year, when the artist Lars Vilks and his two bodyguards Andreas and David collided head-on with a truck, after which it started to burn violently. In the now discontinued preliminary investigation, several shocked motorists tell about scenes that they previously only saw on film, if even that.
“Never ever. There was nothing left. ”
One of all cars who is nearby drives on behalf of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service and transports two clients deprived of their liberty, of whom a high-risk prisoner who has a threat against him. When they are forced to slow down, some other motorists, a couple, stand and film the accident site with a mobile phone. When the prisoners see this through the windshield, it gets messy in the transport car.
“The clients were upset because they thought the couple could help instead of filming.”
The carrier hesitates between running forward and helping, and leaving his colleague alone with the clients in the car.
“Leaving him with two chained people was not entirely optimal.”
Finally, he throws on a vest, wears a fire extinguisher and tries to extinguish the sea of fire.
“Which was completely pointless.”
When Lars Vilks bodyguard car frontal collisions, loosens the truck’s cab and is thrown away about twenty meters. Inside sits the driver, a man from Romania, hanging upside down in his seatbelt. There he is trapped, while it explodes and explodes around him and the heat from the sea of fire is getting closer.
“I felt like I was in a trap. I could not do anything “, says the truck driver in interrogation.
Several motorists stop and see that hope is out for Lars Vilks and his two bodyguards, but hear how the truck driver is desperately screaming for help, in English. People climb up on the cab and try to get him out, but at first it is not possible. He is stuck between the walls of the cab and the door and it is so hot in the cab that people can not get in. A woman who works in healthcare nevertheless tries to calm the truck driver by talking to him through the demolished windscreen.
Finally, the truck driver can be pulled free, with broken glass on his body.
At the same time as the fight to save his life, another bodyguard drives towards the scene unaware of what happened to their security guard Lars Vilks and their colleagues Andreas and David.
An hour earlier, the two bodyguard cars, which were driving in a column, had stopped and refueled at Circle K in Jönköping. In connection with this, Lars Vilks changed his car, for police tactical reasons.
Now, near Markaryd, car number two is about twenty minutes behind.
I sat and looked at the phone. I had driven to Jönköping so I felt that now I should relax “, says one of the bodyguards who was sitting in the escort car during interrogation.
As the bodyguards approach the scene of the accident, they see a large ball of fire and a black pillar of smoke rising towards the sky.
“We just, damn it, it’s burning. The first thought was that an electric car had crashed. ”
The bodyguards try to call their colleagues Andreas and David and shout to them again and again over the radio, but get no answer.
“And then immediately it feels in the stomach that something might be wrong.”
They are still uncertain on whether their worst fears have come true, that the accident has to do with their colleagues and Lars Vilks. A discussion erupts that on the one hand they should keep a low profile as bodyguards, on the other hand they must be told what has happened. It lands in that they turn on the blue lights and hurry forward.
At the roadside, one of the bodyguards finds a tire from Vilk’s bodyguard car, a Range Rover Sentinel, which he points out. A colleague runs forward, photographs, and runs back to their own car of the same brand to compare.
“Everything is right, the pieces of the puzzle are starting to fall into place”, describes the bodyguard for the police with tears in his eyes.
They still do not give up hope but try to call their colleagues Andreas and David, standing at the inferno.
Finally comes a police officer and shows the registration plate from the accident car. The bodyguards also overhear how one of the care staff says that no one, apart from the truck driver, has survived.
Witnesses describe what the bodyguards look like when they are in a trance. The bodyguards remain on the scene for five hours, all while the fire is fought and the three bodies are later taken care of.
“We did not want to leave, we did not want to leave them.”
In interrogation testify the bodyguards about what cohesion they had in the group, how they trained, worked, trained and really got to know each other. Nothing was strange this last weekend that they spent in Stockholm with Lars Vilks. Possibly one of the bodyguards sitting in Vilk’s accident car was catching a cold, but it was nothing else.
“If it had been something, I’m one hundred percent sure he would have told me, because we have the open climate.”
Last night in Stockholm, they had dinner with Lars Vilks and the bodyguards describe that they had time to sleep properly. When asked what they think happened, one of them answers:
“It’s shrouded in obscurity, it’s just a question mark for someone else. It’s mostly … you get empty. ”
He also asks how it went with the only one who survived, the truck driver.
The Romanian driver was cared for at the hospital in Lund for serious injuries, but can eventually be discharged. He tells the police that on the day of the accident he had bought a loaf of cigarettes. During the work weeks, he usually feels lonely and calls his mother during the rides, which he did on this day as well.
A few seconds after they hung up, narrow it down.
The driver expresses his great gratitude to the medical staff who he believes saved his life, and is anxious to find out if there were more than himself who were affected. The truck driver also says in interrogation that he will now stop smoking.
Several witnesses describes how fast Vilk’s bodyguard car drove. A man who violently exceeded the speed limit of 120 kilometers per hour says, after making sure not to be reported to the police himself, that he was overtaken. He estimates that the bodyguard car, which weighs just over four tonnes, drove about 160 to 180 kilometers per hour, which is close to the car’s maximum speed.
The high speed is pointed out as one of several aggravating circumstances in the police investigation. In addition, the bodyguard car was equipped with winter tires even though it was early autumn and about 15 degrees warm. In the investigation, experts testify that winter tires should not be used when it is more than five, maximum seven degrees outside because performance and properties deteriorate, such as braking distance. They also react to more details about the winter tires, for example that all four had not been replaced to identical at the same time, its age and track depth.
As DN reported, both the inspector and the Swedish Transport Administration considered that the car had the wrong load index for being so heavy, for weak tires. However, the police investigation does not determine whether it was one or more of these factors that caused the right rear tire to break, the driver lost control and collided head-on with a truck.
In connection with the preliminary investigation being closed down, the bodyguard Andreas’ family left a message to DN: “It has been difficult but nice to find out a little more facts. Otherwise, we have no comments. “
Lars Vilk’s special resident has told DN that it was an unnecessary accident.
“It simply came to our notice then. I will never get my Lars back ”.