Two former executives of a Swedish oil company will appear before a Stockholm court on Tuesday charged with complicity in war crimes committed with the Sudanese regime of Omar al-Bashir between 1999 and 2003.
The longest trial in Swedish history: Ian Lundin and Alex Schneiter charged with complicity in war crimes
The trial, which comes after more than ten years of investigation, is set to be the longest in Swedish history, with closing arguments scheduled for February 2026. Sweden’s Ian Lundin, Managing Director (1998-2002) of Lundin Oil, and Switzerland’s Alex Schneiter, then Vice-President in charge of operations, will face charges of “complicity in war crimes”.
After an oil discovery by Lundin in 1999 in “Block 5A”, the field was the scene of clashes between the Sudanese army and militiamen allied with the Khartoum regime of President Omar al-Bashir, on the one hand, and rebel militias on the other. For the prosecution, the two executives were complicit in crimes against humanity for having asked the government of the time to ensure the company’s safety on site, knowing that this would involve the use of “military force”.
“They made this request knowing, or at the very least being indifferent to, the fact that the army and militias were waging a war in violation of international humanitarian law,” Attorney General Krister Petersson said in a statement.
Accusations of war crimes in Sudan: Lundin Oil executives face life imprisonment
The Sudanese army, with its allies, “carried out military operations to take control of the area and create the necessary conditions for oil exploration by Lundin Oil”, according to the indictment issued in 2021.
“The investigation shows that the army and its allied militias systematically attacked civilians or carried out indiscriminate attacks,” according to prosecutor Henrik Attorps quoted in the document.
These attacks ranged “from aerial bombardments to shooting at civilians from armed helicopters, kidnapping, looting and burning villages and crops”. Both defendants face life imprisonment if convicted. Prosecutors have already announced that they will seek a ten-year ban on running a business. They also demanded the forfeiture of 2.4 billion kroner (200 million euros) from Orron Energy, the successor company to Lundin Oil, equivalent to the profits made on the sale of operations in Sudan in 2003.
Lundin Oil trial: Two years of river investigation in Swedish court despite Schneiter’s Swiss nationality
Oil production only began in 2006, after Lundin withdrew. Since independence in 2011, the deposit has been located on the territory of South Sudan. The investigation into these facts began in 2010 and has resulted in an 80,000-page file, after 150 people were interviewed, according to the Swedish prosecuting authority. The defendants deny any wrongdoing, and their defense asserts that the investigations do not confirm the prosecutors’ conclusions.
“We believe that the two years spent on this trial will be a considerable waste of time and resources,” Ian Lundin’s lawyer Torgny Wetterberg told AFP.
Lundin Oil rejected the accusations, claiming in 2021 that “no evidence” was put forward to link Lundin’s executives to the crimes committed in Sudan. Under the principle of extraterritoriality, Sweden can try crimes committed in a third country. A government endorsement in 2018 had been required to prosecute a foreign national.
In 2022, the Supreme Court rejected Alex Schneiter’s appeal against the principle of extraterritoriality. The latter argued that he could not be subject to the universal jurisdiction of the country’s justice system for war crimes, as he was neither a resident nor a citizen of Sweden. “Some form of link with Sweden” was indeed required for the indictment, but the Supreme Court found that Mr. Schneiter’s links with the country “in other areas” were “sufficient”.
