STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Two former executives at a Swedish oil company went on trial in Stockholm yesterday accused of complicity in war crimes committed by Sudan’s regime between 1999 and 2003.
Swede Ian Lundin and Swiss national Alex Schneiter are accused of asking Sudan’s government to make its military responsible for security at the site of one of Lundin Oil’s exploration fields, which later led to aerial bombings, killing of civilians and burning of entire villages, according to the prosecution.
Lundin was chief executive of family firm Lundin Oil, now known as Orron Energy, from 1998 to 2002, and Schneiter was vice president at the time. The pair have denied any wrongdoing.
The trial is the biggest in Swedish history, following a 13-year probe, a more than 80,000-page investigation report, and with closing arguments scheduled for February 2026. The two, who were formally named as suspects in 2016, face the formal charge of “complicity in grave war crimes” committed during the rule of Omar al-Bashir.
After Lundin Oil struck oil in 1999 in the “Block 5A” field in what is now South Sudan, the Sudanese military, together with an allied militia, “led offensive military operations to take control of the area and create the necessary preconditions for Lundin Oil’s oil exploration”, Sweden’s prosecution service said in a 2021 statement announcing the charges.
“In our view, the investigation shows that the military and its allied militia systematically attacked civilians or carried out indiscriminate attacks,” public prosecutor Henrik Attorps said.
This included “aerial bombardments from transport planes, shooting civilians from helicopter gunships, abducting and plundering civilians and burning entire villages and their crops”.
Prosecutors argue that the accused were complicit because Lundin Oil knew that asking Sudan’s government to make the military responsible for security meant it would take control of the area by “military force”.
If convicted, Lundin and Schneiter risk life sentences. The prosecution has already requested that the two be banned from any business undertakings for 10 years.
It has also asked for the confiscation of SEK2.4 billion (USD218 million) from Orron Energy, equivalent to the profit the company made on the sale of its Sudan operations in 2003.
