It was just before noon on New Year's Eve that a famous Swedish artist was arrested and detained on suspicion of involvement in a kidnapping of another Swedish artist that took place in April last year.

The artist denies the crime.

The arrested artist has previously been sentenced to prison for just over two years for a serious gun crime.

The artist has also been in custody for three months on suspicion of murder, but was released on March 20, 2020 and then the investigation was closed.

Nominated for P3 Gold

At the same time, the artist is very popular on the streaming services, is often played on the radio channel P3 and has been nominated for the P3 Gold Gala which takes place on March 20.

Anna-Karin Larsson, music manager at Swedish Radio, says that it has not been decided whether the artist will remain as a nominee.

- It is clear that we really need to discuss this.

When it comes to this year's gala, we will come back to exactly how it will be.

However, the artist will continue to be played on the radio.

- It is a year when there is very good music from this artist and there is a lot of interest.

Then we think it is important to play the music.

But I understand that some people think it's a strange decision.

- We always take these things from case to case.

The work is one thing and the author is another.

The artistic freedom is very important to us, says Anna-Karin Larsson.

Participates in documentaries on SVT

SVT published a documentary about the artist on SVT Play on November 26, 2020, that is, before the arrest on New Year's Eve.

The documentary's responsible publisher Martin Vårdstedt says that the program will remain on the play service.

- At present, it is not relevant to unpublish the interview.

In the assessment, I weigh in, among other things, that what the artist is now suspected of are events that should have occurred in April, while SVT's interview was done in October.

At the time, the artist was not suspected of any crime.

The artist is now in custody but not charged.

We follow the preliminary investigation and relate to the development of events continuously.

In light of what has happened, do you wish you had designed the documentary in a different way?

- It is a hypothetical question, but the connections between certain expressions in music and crime are part of our time that we must monitor, both from a crime journalism and cultural journalism perspective.