What do people think happened that night

The Armed Forces: We do not know what we smuggled into Estonia
Published 23 December 2022 at 07:37
DOMESTIC. The Swedish Armed Forces barely managed to answer a single question when the National Accident Commission (SHK) asked a series of questions about the sinking of the passenger ferry Estonia. Among other things, the authority claims to have forgotten what it was that was smuggled on the ship in 1994.


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After the SVT journalist Lars Borgnäs exposed the smuggling in 2004, a scant investigation was carried out under the leadership of the then president of the Court of Appeal, Johan Hirschfeldt.

However, Hirschfeldt blacked out almost all the details of the smuggling and what was smuggled, telling only that what the Swedish Armed Forces smuggled was "electronic equipment not connected to weapons systems".

When the Swedish Armed Forces are now asked to account for the smuggling in more detail, however, it turns out to be impossible to find out what was smuggled and by whom.

"The armed forces have no other information about this material than the information that appears in the investigation," the authority writes in its response to the Accident Commission.

But it is not only the documentation about what was smuggled into Estonia that has been thinned out by the Armed Forces over the years. It is also impossible to find out where the Swedish submarine Neptun and its submarine colleague HMS Södermanland were on the night of the accident because the log books "got lost" - even though the log books must be archived by law.

"It is not infrequent that log books are forgotten once they have been filled in and that they are not sent in together with other log books either from the relevant unit or from the relevant Naval Command," writes the Swedish Armed Forces in their response.

However, the authority has interviewed personnel, it is unclear which, who certify that the submarines were not at the accident site during the night.

Nor can the Defense Forces answer what two other mysterious ships were that were operating in the vicinity of Estonia when she sank but did not participate in the sea rescue work.

"In 1994, the Swedish Armed Forces did not have radar coverage over the sinking site and the AIS system had not yet been introduced as standard in the merchant fleet. For that reason, the Swedish Armed Forces have no information about the two ships mentioned in JAIC's report," says the Swedish Armed Forces' response.