Swedish oil firm executives go on trial over war crimes in South Sudan

Two former executives at a Swedish oil company Lundin Oil are going on trial on Tuesday (5 September), with both defendants accused of complicity in war crimes in present-day South Sudan, with prosecutors saying both were complicit in atrocities by Sudanese army and militias between 1999 and 2003, which both flatly deny.
Swiss national Alex Schneiter and Swedish Ian Lundin are charged with complicity in war crimes committed over 20 years ago in what is now South Sudan. Prosecutors say the then Lundin Oil – which has since changed its name several times and in 2022 sold most of its business – asked Khartoum to secure a potential oilfield in what is now South Sudan, knowing this would mean seizing the area by force. Between 1999 and 2003, following Lundin’s discovery of an oil deposit, the Sudanese army and allied militias carried out large-scale military operations to control this area “and create the necessary conditions for oil extraction”, the Swedish prosecutor’s office said in a statement published in mid-August.
The prosecutors also argue that the two former executives were complicit because they knew Sudan’s government would take control of the area by “military force” that is vividly described as “aerial bombardments from transport planes, shooting civilians from helicopter gunships, abducting and plundering civilians and burning entire villages and their crops.” The trial, which is expected to be the biggest of its kind in Sweden’s history, and will likely be watched far beyond the country’s borders, follows a 13-year investigation culminating in findings over 80,000 pages.