Prosecuted for sex offenses - today the trial starts against Eskil Erlandsson

It was in March this year that the police launched a preliminary investigation against Eskil Erlandsson following police reports from, among other things, two female moderate parliamentarians. But according to Center Party leader Annie Lööf, Eskil Erlandsson's women's fraud was known already in the fall of 2018.

The party's group leader in Parliament, Anders W Jonsson, then invited Eskil Erlandsson to resign from his post as parliamentary member with immediate effect. But it wasn't until March 2019 that Eskil resigned after being reported to the police for sexually assaulting three female top politicians.

"It is not the party leadership that decides when someone should leave Parliament, but a long line of talks were required before Eskil Erlandsson himself decided to resign," Annie Lööf said during an interview with SVT News on March 11.

According to police questioning with the plaintiffs, Eskil Erlandsson has put his hand on their legs. The events have occurred at lunches and dinners where several people were sitting together at a table. Eskil should have similarly in all the different cases put their hand under the table and caressed the women along the thighs.

Eskil Erlandsson himself denies the crime and says in interrogation that he has had problems with his joints and tendons in his hand and hip for several years. Therefore, he usually massages himself to relieve the pain.

It is during these occasions that Eskil Erlandsson claims that he may have touched his table mate with his hand, but that it did not make sense.

- It will ultimately be an assessment for the district court when everyone is in place during the negotiations. I think that both the plaintiffs and witnesses appear to be confident that these touches are intentional, ”says Prosecutor Lena Kastlund.

The district court hearings begin on Monday at 9.15 am and are expected to take one and a half days.

Anders W Jonsson and party secretary Michael Arthursson had a meeting with Erlandsson in January 2018. They announced that what had happened was unacceptable and Jonsson urged Erlandsson not to run for parliament again. The nominating committee in his homeland Kronoberg was not informed of what had happened, but wanted to renew the parliamentary list and did not include Erlandsson at all in his proposal. However, he entered the list again and remained in parliament with the support of personal votes.

"If we had known it would have looked different, I think it is a pity we did not know," says Tommy Linnér, who was then chairman of the committee.

The center woman says that she did not campaign as actively as she intended for a parliamentary seat because she hesitated before the risk of meeting Erlandsson in parliament. For the same reason, she relinquished the Center's comment days last winter.