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Sweden: Kurd still "suspected"

01 March 1993

The media are still publishing stories leaked by the Swedish security police that Ismet Celepli, one of the eight Kurds sentenced to municipal arrest (kommunarrest), is suspected for the Palme assassination. All are still under suspicion of being terrorists without any concrete evidence. Ismet Celepli arrived to Sweden 1975 and was granted residence permit in 1976. In December 1984 he was sentenced to municipal arrest which means he was forbidden to leave his municipality and obliged to regularly report to the police. It has been impossible to get the courts to consider the municipal arrest and the accusations of terrorism, and neither Celepli nor his lawyer had been permitted to see the material upon which the security police bases its accusations. The municipal arrest lasted until September 1991, when the government decided to withdraw it because the Supreme Court had indicated that prolonging it could be regarded as being against the constitution. Celepli and his family has been under enormous pressure and have been subject to bugging, telephone tapping and police harassment. Celepli can no longer work.

When the municipal arrest was withdrawn Celepli applied for Swedish citizenship. Non-nordic citizens have, according to Swedish law, the right to citizenship if they have been living in the country for more than five years and there are no substantial reasons against them becoming citizens. In February 1993, more than two years after the application, the government decided that his application should be rejected claiming that he did not fulfil the criteria of living in Sweden for more than the last five years. The government said that the period of municipal arrest, in matters of citizenship, was the same as living abroad. The government thus avoided the question of the allegations made by the security police.