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Security beefed up for Sahlin due to threats

Published: 16 Aug 10 15:53 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/28404/20100816/

security" class="nodec">Security for Social Democratic leader Mona Sahlin has been tightened due to serious threats against her just over a month before elections, Swedish media reported on Monday.

According to the tabloid Expressen, security for the prime ministerial candidate has gradually increased after a "barrage of threatening emails and letters to Mona Sahlin's office in parliament."

"The threat level has changed," an unnamed police source told the paper.

When contacted by AFP, a spokesman for the Swedish security police, which handles security for high-profile politicians, refused to comment on the
information.

On Sunday, when Sahlin held a large campaign rally in Stockholm ahead of the upcoming September 19th election, four bodyguards wearing bulletproof vests were at her side the entire time, according to Expressen.

The 53-year-old career politician has received numerous threats in the past, the paper added. After a scandal dubbed the Toblerone Affair over her use of a party credit card to buy chocolate and other items in 1995, Sahlin was for a time forced to work in a bulletproof room.

In 2004, during a visit to the central Swedish town of Norrköping, a man walked up to her and asked if she was Mona Sahlin before punching her.

Sweden has been traumatised by two political assassinations in recent
decades. Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot on a Stockholm street in 1986, while foreign minister Anna Lindh was stabbed to death in an upscale department store in the heart of the capital in 2003.

Like Sahlin, both Palme and Lindh were Social Democrats. Neither of them had bodyguards with them at the time they were killed.

AFP/The Local (news@thelocal.se)

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17:10 August 16, 2010 by G Kin
She isn't even in office, so why such a high level of threat?.

Is Reinfieldt Facing the same?.

On my mind, it can only be Swedish Democrats behind the threats.
18:05 August 16, 2010 by zircon
Killing Politicians sounds like ritual killings doing extremely well in Sweden. This is quite strange.
18:58 August 16, 2010 by Mzungu
Apparently, someone threatened her with a 'Toblerone'!
00:00 August 17, 2010 by aaww
my god, someone even bother to threaten this lady?!?
13:55 August 17, 2010 by Kevtravels
Hahaha about the guy asking if she was herself before punching her in 04. I wish it was filmed so I could watch.
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