Defense call for acquittal sparks anger as Swedish arson trial ends

May 18, 2000
Web posted at: 12:58 PM EDT (1658 GMT)

GOTHENBURG, Sweden -- Defense lawyers caused an uproar in a Swedish court with closing arguments calling for the acquittal of three teen-agers accused of starting a dance hall fire that killed 63 people.

The mother of one of the victims started screaming at the defendants and had to be forcibly removed from the court as lawyer Lief Silbersky ended his closing arguments.

"He was at the wrong place at the wrong time," Silbersky said of his client, who was under 18 at the time of the fire -- the youngest of four accused.

"We can moralize and have points of view. But Swedish law cannot sentence my client for anything in this court," said the lawyer.

Silbersky's appeal for the acquittal and immediate release of his client pending a verdict caused a commotion in the courtroom.

Thirty minutes later, the court announced that all four defendants would remain in custody and would be isolated.

The four accused teen-agers are members of Kurdish and Iranian immigrant families. All four have denied charges of gross arson arising from the fire.

One of the accused admitted starting what he called a small fire in the stairwell of the dance hall on October 29, 1998.

The mother of one of those killed in the blaze was ejected from the courtroom for screaming at the four defendants.

"Why did you do it? My child saved others, but died in the fire," the woman, also Iranian, shouted as the four accused were led out. Gothenburg district court president Bengt-Ake Engstrom ordered ushers to remove the woman from court.

In earlier closing arguments, Goran Bergendahl, lawyer for the 19-year-old who has admitted setting fire to a chair in the stairwell, said his client had never imagined the consequences.

"Nothing indicates he should be ruthless or indifferent," Bergendahl said.

Prosecutor Ulf Noren had argued that the fire was deliberately started and urged a full conviction of the four defendants, although he also asked for lenient sentences.

The trial is presided over by two judges and four politically elected members, and they will announce a verdict on June 8.

Swedish penal law provides for penalties ranging from six years to life imprisonment for aggravated arson.

More than 700 survivors, family members and journalists have been following the proceedings at the exhibition center in Gothenburg, a city of about 435,000 located on Sweden's west coast.

The 1998 fire killed 63 teen-agers and injured 200 others.

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