3 countries: Denmark, Sweden, and Germany have opened investigations into the Nord Stream pipeline explosion incident (Anatolia)

The Swedish Public Prosecution announced today, Wednesday, the closure of its investigations into the incident of sabotage of the Russian gas pipelines “Nord Stream 1 and 2” in September 2022, and justified the decision by saying that the matter does not fall within its jurisdiction.

In a statement in this regard, the Swedish Attorney General, Mats Ljungqvist, said that the investigation concluded that the incident “does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Swedish judiciary, and therefore the investigation must be closed,” explaining that he shared the results of the investigation with the German judicial authorities.

The Swedish Public Prosecutor denied that there was any indication that Sweden or Swedish citizens were involved in the attack, and stated that the bombing occurred in international waters.

He described the legal cooperation with Denmark and Germany in this regard as good, and said, "Within the framework of this legal cooperation, we were able to hand over documents that can be used as evidence in the German investigation."

A series of underwater explosions occurred on September 26, 2022, sabotaging the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines to transport natural gas from Russia to Western Europe.

Russian accusations

Investigations into the bombings were opened in three European countries: Germany, Denmark and Sweden, which announced today the closure of their investigations into the incident.

Russia protested that the investigations did not reach any results, and the Russian Foreign Ministry accused the three countries of deliberately delaying the investigation and trying to hide who was behind the bombings, and said that it was not satisfied with what it described as the ambiguous nature of the investigation and its refusal to deal with Russia.

The United States and NATO then described the explosions as an “act of sabotage,” while Moscow placed responsibility on the West, while both sides did not provide any evidence.

The Swedish Public Prosecutor said during statements he made in April of last year that “the main hypothesis is that a country was behind this bombing,” adding that its perpetrators knew “very well that they would leave traces.”

In turn, Swedish intelligence said in a separate statement that the investigation had been opened “to determine whether the sabotage was targeting Sweden and thus threatening the country’s security, and it was proven that this was not the case.”

Based on various media investigations, responsibility for the bombings was attributed to Ukraine, Russia, or the United States, but these three countries denied this.

Source: Al Jazeera + French