Why I am suing DN and Peter Wolodarski for libel

Dagens Nyheter published a major article about me on October 7, 2018 (online) and October 8, 2018 (printed edition) which contained many errors, insinuations, offensive claims, inaccuracies and other false accusations.

Dagens Nyheter presents a picture of me as a shadowy businessman with strong links to both the Kremlin and the far-right party Sweden Democrats. It is incomprehensible how DN’s editor-in-chief, Peter Wolodarski, can allow a journalistic disaster of this nature. As the Swedish saying goes, the soup is so thin, it doesn’t even have a nail in it (it is, literally, made of nothing).

Across the front page in the printed edition and in a major article on the newspaper’s website, I am described as a shady real estate mogul who promotes both Russian and Sweden Democrat interests. This is such a major “revelation” that Dagens Nyheter not only allows two of its most high-profile, well-paid investigative reporters to spend at least a month on it, but also fills its headlines with this alleged news.

No other media have chosen to report on DN’s claims. In social media, journalists at other newspapers wondered what the news was, and the comments beneath the article were ultimately so embarrassing to the paper that they decided to close down the entire comment section a few hours after publication.

What is the story then? For much of the 1990s I worked as a consultant to the State-owned Swedish Space Company, which after the collapse of the Soviet Union bought launches for civilian satellites on converted missiles in Russia. At the request of the state-owned Swedish Space Company, I contacted a person who later became my business partner and a business partner of the Swedish Space Company. On the basis of an anonymous source in a six-year-old article in a Russian newspaper, DN identifies him as a KGB agent.

I am now mainly active in the real estate sector. I purchased two buildings on the Stockholm island of Lidingö, and my mission has been to rent them to diplomats and corporate executives. One of the properties is currently rented to the Russian Embassy. That makes neither me nor the Russian ambassador’s former landlord, the Dinkelspiel family, people who improperly promote Russian interests. Similarly, I did not run errands for Baghdad when the Iraqi embassy was my tenant in another property.

As a third “piece of evidence” showing my loyalty to Moscow, DN emphasises that I purchased a property in the Stockholm district of Kungsholmen which is located a few hundred meters from the Russian embassy. The content of this sensational revelation is as interesting as the fact that it is roughly the same distance to Dagens Nyheter’s editorial offices. The newspaper also reports that I had the nerve to buy and renovate a conference hotel on Lidingö, the future operations of which have not been determined.

As further proof of my Russian connections to the Kremlin, DN has published a private photo of me outside the Kremlin. The fact that it has no connection at all to my work at the Swedish Space Corporation is clear from the Soviet flag in the background. The picture was taken when I was a 25-year-old tourist visiting Moscow with my uncle.

All in all, DN can thus provide no evidence of any connections to the Russian state or that I promote Russian interests in any way. Nevertheless, this is the image the newspaper promotes in the best possible way.

The second of DN’s suspicions concerns the Sweden Democrats. I have about 200 tenants in my properties in Stockholm. A few years ago, one of them was the party’s Stockholm branch. Even though I have never personally been involved in the leasing of these very small premises in a property that has also been sold, DN describes me as a party “sympathiser”.

DN chooses not to mention that I am a member of a political party in parliament that actively opposes SD precisely because I am worried about the tendency the party represents. That does not fit their picture. The fact that I am also part-owner of a media company that campaigned against right-wing extremism in Sweden’s recent general election and that I operate a residence for refugees are also things that DN does not think are relevant to readers. Nor did DN think the fact that I have a child with a Muslim woman was evidence enough that I would ever sympathise with or support SD. I provided all this kind of information to Dagens Nyheter well in advance of publication.

Over the past 20 years or so, I have been very restrictive about media appearances. That has been a conscious decision, and I have kindly turned down requests for interviews. I have also lived abroad for a long time. I have full respect that there can be a need for information about my businesses so I have had two press spokespersons for my companies who have done their best to answer the questions presented by the media in a good way.

The context is important. In recent years, the link between nationalist and xenophobic forces on the one hand and the Russian state on the other has attracted great attention around Europe. One week earlier, DN had published a major article about Finnish authorities cracking down on Russian interests in the Turunmaa archipelago, and in one column Peter Wolodarski encouraged Swedish authorities to be on their guard for similar developments in Sweden. At the end of the article about me, there is also a fact box that notes how the “digging” began with a search for the owner of SD’s office, and the text is part of an investigation into how Russian interests are advancing their positions in Sweden – which in my case would then consist of the Russian ambassador renting a residence from one of my companies and the Swedish state buying Russian rocket launches.

I can understand that after months of digging it can be difficult for journalists to abandon their work when they realise that there really is nothing to report. When they then choose to instead cook up a conspiratorial soup without content, it is time for the editor-in-chief to say stop, to explain that the story does not hold. We therefore contacted the editor-in-chief, Peter Wolodarski, prior to publication to point out the absurdity of the alleged link between SD, Russian politics and me. Peter Wolodarski did not take action but instead chose to greenlight the article, which as a whole provides a very damning portrait of me.

Through my legal representative, Percy Bratt, one of Sweden’s foremost experts in freedom of expression, I have filed a case against Peter Wolodarski and DN for libel. See you in court.

Johan Lundberg

PS The compensation I receive for my person I will donate to the organization ”Non-Violence Project Foundation”. DS

For further information, please contact:

Hans Uhrus

Press contact, NFF Nordic AB

+46 (0)768 95 0101

hans.uhrus@uhrvis.se

NFF Nordic is a privately owned property company that combines a global outlook and global experience with strong local expertise, a strong local presence and a passion for property. Our main mission is to acquire, actively manage and develop centrally located residential, office and retail properties in Stockholm.