Climate activist denied citizenship after airport protest

Two climate activists sprayed red paint on Bromma Airport in the autumn of 2023, but the prosecutor charged a total of 17 people for the property damage. Researcher Isabelle Letellier was denied Swedish citizenship in the process and is now awaiting her verdict. "No one understands why we were all charged," she says.

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No one understands why we were all charged.

The alarm about airport sabotage at Bromma Airport came on the morning of September 17, 2023. Several police patrols were called to the scene, the flight service company Grafair's terminal for private flights. The incident was interpreted as extremely serious. Swedavia stated that an ambulance flight could not land as planned and had to be rerouted to Arlanda. All 17 climate activists were arrested at the scene. The formal suspicion was airport sabotage – a crime that can lead to life imprisonment if deemed serious.

Activist Isabelle Letellier and the other demonstrators sat on the ground guarded by police with reinforcement weapons. "The worst thing I have ever experienced. I have never been arrested before," she tells DN. Two and a half years later, she and the 16 other activists are sitting in the security hall of Attunda District Court. They are no longer suspected of airport sabotage. The information about the rerouted ambulance flight had turned out to be false, according to a revelation by Dagens ETC. The only aircraft that had been rerouted was a private plane from London that had been flown without passengers. When charges were brought against the activists, the suspicions had been reduced to property damage, or complicity in property damage.

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The worst thing I have ever experienced. I have never been arrested before.

Video footage from the action at Bromma Airport shows that two of the accused threw and sprayed red paint on the terminal, a small aircraft, and some cars. Isabelle Letellier's role at the time was to hold a banner. "I thought I had the right to be here and demonstrate. Never in my world did I think I would be arrested. In the morning, I told my family I would be back for lunch," she says in court. The accused climate activists are members of the activist group Extinction Rebellion (XR). Several of them also belong to Scientist Rebellion, a sister group to XR that gathers scientists and academics.

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I thought I had the right to be here and demonstrate. Never in my world did I think I would be arrested. In the morning, I told my family I would be back for lunch.