Bullet sent to Sweden's finance minister
A letter with a .22-calibre bullet arrived at the offices of Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg on Thursday courtesy of a leftist extremist group angered by bonuses paid to executives at state-owned companies.
“The bonus system costs hundreds of millions – a bullet in the neck is just a few kronor,” the letter stated, according to the website of the Revolutionära Front (‘Revolutionary Front’), which claimed responsibility for the correspondence.
The group published news of the letter on its website on March 10th, a full nine days before it reached the finance minister, according to the Politikerbloggen politics website.
According to Politikerbloggen, the envelope had not been x-rayed beforehand, as is standard practice for all letters and packages sent to Swedish ministers and government office employees.
In the letter to Borg, the group took issue with what it argued was the finance minister’s hypocritical approach to bonuses.
While the finance minister had spoken out against bonuses paid to the upper management of Sweden’s banks, he didn’t according to the Revolutionära Front “raise his voice about how the government last summer raised the bonuses for executives of state-owned companies”.
Specifically, the group expressed anger over higher bonuses for leaders of the country’s AP pension funds, which are charged with managing Swedes’ public pensions.
“The case of the AP funds is just like that of Volvo or Ericsson when the highest executives take home bonuses worth millions at the same they plan layoffs for tens of thousands of workers,” the Revolutionära Front said on its website.
The group explained that the letter was meant to “help our dear finance minister” out of a “slightly embarrassing situation” and that the bullet could help Borg “start the first purge free of charge”.
According to the Revolutionära Front, Borg was to use the bullet to shoot the head of one of the AP pension funds in order to “take back” his bonus and “symbolically return it to the country’s pensioners”.
A spokesperson for Sweden’s security police, Säpo, refused to comment on whether the letter was considered a threat against the finance minister.
“We don’t comment on the threats against those whom we protect and therefore don’t have any comment on this information either,” Säpo spokesperson Anders Tagesson told Politikerbloggen.
Comments
See Also
“The bonus system costs hundreds of millions – a bullet in the neck is just a few kronor,” the letter stated, according to the website of the Revolutionära Front (‘Revolutionary Front’), which claimed responsibility for the correspondence.
The group published news of the letter on its website on March 10th, a full nine days before it reached the finance minister, according to the Politikerbloggen politics website.
According to Politikerbloggen, the envelope had not been x-rayed beforehand, as is standard practice for all letters and packages sent to Swedish ministers and government office employees.
In the letter to Borg, the group took issue with what it argued was the finance minister’s hypocritical approach to bonuses.
While the finance minister had spoken out against bonuses paid to the upper management of Sweden’s banks, he didn’t according to the Revolutionära Front “raise his voice about how the government last summer raised the bonuses for executives of state-owned companies”.
Specifically, the group expressed anger over higher bonuses for leaders of the country’s AP pension funds, which are charged with managing Swedes’ public pensions.
“The case of the AP funds is just like that of Volvo or Ericsson when the highest executives take home bonuses worth millions at the same they plan layoffs for tens of thousands of workers,” the Revolutionära Front said on its website.
The group explained that the letter was meant to “help our dear finance minister” out of a “slightly embarrassing situation” and that the bullet could help Borg “start the first purge free of charge”.
According to the Revolutionära Front, Borg was to use the bullet to shoot the head of one of the AP pension funds in order to “take back” his bonus and “symbolically return it to the country’s pensioners”.
A spokesperson for Sweden’s security police, Säpo, refused to comment on whether the letter was considered a threat against the finance minister.
“We don’t comment on the threats against those whom we protect and therefore don’t have any comment on this information either,” Säpo spokesperson Anders Tagesson told Politikerbloggen.
Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.
Please log in here to leave a comment.