Sweden announces end of Nord Stream probe for insufficient evidence
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The Swedish Prosecution Authority says one of the reasons to terminate is that the damage was not directed against Sweden specifically.
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Sweden's foreign minister, prime minister and defense minister hold a press conference in Stockholm on the gas leak found on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in the Baltic Sea on September 27, 2022. (AFP)
The Swedish Prosecution Authority announced the end of the investigation into the Nord Stream explosions - with one of the reasons being that the damage was not directed against Sweden specifically.
In a statement, the authority said: "The conclusion of the investigation is that Swedish jurisdiction does not apply and that the investigation therefore should be closed". It added: "...the authorities have a clear view of the incident and that nothing has emerged to indicate that Sweden or Swedish citizens were involved in the attack."
Around a year ago, Sweden announced that the explosions that targeted Nord Stream pipelines, carrying natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea in September, were acts of sabotage.
Read more: Hungary calls halt of Nord Stream probe 'outrageous and scandalous'
The prosecutor leading the preliminary investigation, Mats Ljungqvist, said in a statement at the time, "The analyses conducted found traces of explosives on several foreign objects" found at the sites of the blasts," adding that technical analyses were still undergoing to "draw more reliable conclusions regarding the incident."
American games at work
Famed journalist Seymour Hersh, who had previously exposed US war crimes in My Lai and Abu Ghraib, and had most recently exposed the US' role in the Nord Stream explosions, revealed further information in an interview with China Daily in March last year.
Hersh argued that the US elites had a "long-standing history" of being "disturbed by the Russian gas and oil sales to Western Europe," which was further confirmed after US President Joe Biden’s public threat to "bring an end" to the Nord Stream pipelines just two weeks prior to the war in Ukraine. This, Hersh said, proved that it "wasn’t much of a secret what we wanted to do."
Hersh recalled that in January 2022, top Biden officials decided to "see if we can find a way to blow… those pipelines, and put [the Russians] back in the dark ages."
When asked why the press keeps ignoring his report on the explosion, he said they didn't "like" what he wrote as he took a jab at the White House Press Corp. "I have a horror about the White House press corps" because "they're so tied to the beat."
Biden's decision to order the demolition of the Nord Stream pipelines, says Hersh, was motivated by Germany's projected reluctance to continue arming Ukraine.
Read next: Ukrainian colonel alleged coordinator of Nord Stream attack: WashPo
That followed a report in June 2023 by The Washington Post that said the CIA knew through a European spy agency, three months before the sabotage attack, that members of a Ukrainian special operations team intended to blow up the NordStream pipeline.
