An Important Mathematical Oversight

The original intention for this website was to encourage public awareness of an historical medical crime, one that has remained a tightly-kept British state secret now for more than five decades. The matter is of enormous public interest, not least because the motivation behind the crime itself was that of advancing scientific research into areas that would come to provide the seminal knowledge behind much of the technological progress of the last half-century. My investigation into the matter inspired a parallel enquiry into some of the fundamental principles that underpin that scientific and technological impulse.

There are therefore two principle concerns of this website, and if there is acknowledged to be a substantive connection between them, that has inevitably to do with late 20th Century developments in science and information technologies, and more broadly with the idea of an burgeoning technocracy – the suggestion of a growing alliance between corporate technology and state power – one that might be judged to have atrophied the powers conventionally assigned to liberal-democratic institutions. This link therefore serves as a segue to emphasise the equal importance, to my mind, of what is going on in the X.cetera section of the site, so that that section should not appear, from the point of view of the other, as some kind of afterthought.

X.cetera is concerned with a problem in mathematics and science to do with the way we think about numbers. As a subset of the category defined as integers, elements in the series of the natural numbers are generally held to represent quantities as their absolute, or ‘integral’, properties. It is argued that this conventional understanding of integers, which is the one widely held amongst mathematicians and scientists adopting mathematical principles, is the cause of a significant oversight with regard to changes in the relations of proportion between numerical values, i.e., when those values are transposed out of the decimal rational schema into alternative numerical radices such as those of binary, octal, and hexadecimal, etc.

On the page: The Limits of Rationality it is argued that the relations of proportion between integers are dictated principally by their membership of the restricted group of characters (0-9) as defined by the decimal rational schema; and that corresponding ratios of proportion cannot be assumed to apply between otherwise numerically equal values when transposed into alternative numerical radices having either reduced (as in binary or octal, for instance) or extended (as in hexadecimal) member-ranges.

This is shown to be objectively the case by the results published at: Radical Affinity and Variant Proportion in Natural Numbers, which show that for a series of exponential values in decimal, where the logarithmic ratios between those values are consistently equal to 1, the corresponding series of values when transposed into any radix from binary to nonary (base-9) results in logarithmic ratios having no consistent value at all, in each case producing a graph showing a series of variegated peaks and troughs displaying proportional inconsistency.

These findings are previously unacknowledged by mathematicians and information scientists alike, but the import of the findings is that, while the discrete values of individual integers transposed into alternative radices will be ostensibly equal across those radices, the ratios of proportion between those values will not be preserved, as these ratios must be determined uniquely according to the range of available digits within any respective radix (0-9 in decimal, 0-7 in octal, for instance); one consequence of which of course is the variable relative frequency (or ‘potentiality’) of specific individual digits when compared across radices. This observation has serious consequences in terms of its implications for the logical consistency of data produced within digital information systems, as the logic of those systems generally relies upon the seamless correspondence, not only of ‘integral’ values when transcribed between decimal and the aforementioned radices, but ultimately upon the relations of proportion between those values.

Information Science tends to treat the translation and recording of conventional analogue information into digital format unproblematically. The digital encoding of written, spoken, or visual information is seen to have little effect on the representational content of the message. The process is taken to be neutral, faithful, transparent. While the assessment of quantitative and qualitative differences at the level of the observable world necessarily entails assessments of proportion, the digital encoding of those assessments ultimately involves a reduction, at the level of machine code, to the form of a series of simple binary (or ‘logical’) distinctions between ‘1’ and ‘0’ – positive and negative. The process relies upon a tacit assumption that there exists such a level of fine-grained logical simplicity as the basis of a hierarchy of logical relationships, and which transcends all systems of conventional analogue (or indeed sensory) representation (be they linguistic, visual, sonic, or whatever); and that therefore we may break down these systems of representation to this level – the digital level – and then re-assemble them, as it were, without corruption. Logic is assumed to operate consistently without limits, as a sort of ‘ambient’ condition of information systems.

In the X.cetera section I am concerned to point out however that the logical relationship between ‘1’ and ‘0’ in a binary system (which equates in quantitative terms with what we understand as their proportional relationship) is derived specifically from their membership of a uniquely defined group of digits limited to two members. It does not derive from a set of transcendent logical principles arising elsewhere and having universal applicability (a proposition that, despite its apparent simplicity, may well come as a surprise to many mathematicians and information scientists alike).

As the proportional relationships affecting quantitative expressions within binary are uniquely and restrictively determined, they cannot be assumed to apply (with proportional consistency) to translations of the same expressions into decimal (or into any other number radix, such as octal, or hexadecimal). By extension therefore, the logical relationships within a binary system of codes, being subject to the same restrictive determinations, cannot therefore be applied with logical consistency to conventional analogue representations of the observable world, as this would be to invest binary code with a transcendent logical potential that it simply cannot possess – they may be applied to such representations, and the results may appear to be internally consistent, but they will certainly not be logically consistent with the world of objects.

The issue of a failure of logical consistency is one that concerns the relationships between data objects – it does not concern the specific accuracy or internal content of data objects themselves (just as the variation in proportion across radices concerns the dynamic relations between integers, rather than their specific ‘integral’ numerical values). This means that, from a conventional scientific-positivist perspective, which generally relies for its raw data upon information derived from discrete acts of measurement, the problem will be difficult to recognise or detect (as the data might well appear to possess internal consistency). One will however experience the effects of the failure (while being rather mystified as to its causes) in the lack of a reliable correspondence between expectations derived from data analyses, and real-world events.

So that’s some of what X.cetera is all about.. If you think you’re ‘ard enough!

S O M R

[ PDF version ]

PDF DOWNLOADS

Download my 165-page
report: Special Operations
in Medical Research
[pdf – 1.86MB]:

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[pdf – 230KB]:

The Limits of Rationality
(An important mathematical oversight)
[814KB]:

Radical Affinity and
Variant Proportion in
Natural Numbers
[2.2MB]:

Mind: Before & Beyond Computation
[644KB]:

Dawkins' Theory of Memetics – A Biological Assault on the Cultural
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Randomness, Non-
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Swedish Asylum Applications (2018-2021)¹

References are made on this page to relevant documentary items published in three individual PDF folios:

A – App1_Dec-2018_folio.pdf (15 items).
B – App2_April-2021_folio.pdf (16 items).
C – SWEPOL_May-Aug-2021_folio.pdf (4 items).

The folios are available to download as the following ZIP archive: SWEDEN_2018-2021.zip [14MB].

In December 2018, I travelled from the UK to Sweden with the intention to make a formal application for political asylum there. This followed two months after the decision by Clerkenwell & Shoreditch County Court to grant a possession order to my landlord (that order became enforceable on 18 October 2018), but before the issue of any eviction notice (as detailed at A Miscarriage of Civil Justice, the eviction did not take place until 28/01/2019). I continued to face attempts on my life in the UK, and there were concerns over my health in respect of a previous such attempt in 2015 (re: C-Spine MRI Scan (July 2020)), which tended to outweigh my immediate concerns regarding the threat of losing my flat along with all its contents. Although I was pessimistic about the prospects of being granted asylum in Sweden (in view of my experience of a similar request to the Norwegian UDI having been refused in 2016), it offered at least a potential route for obtaining appropriate medical attention outside of the UK and independently of the UK National Health Service.

The application was initially accepted by the Migrationsverket (‘MVKT’) in Stockholm on 20/12/2018, and I attended an interview there on 27 December, where I presented certain documents along with evidence in electronic format in support of my application (re: items 01 & 02 of folio A in the list above). I awaited a decision on the application from MVKT, but as an asylum-seeker I had no success in obtaining the level of medical attention required to assess the problem in my thoracic-spine/left-shoulder, which would require at least an MRI scan of the area. One problem I faced was that I did not possess a European Health Insurance Card (‘EHIC’), although I was eligible for one. I became increasingly pessimistic about the prospects either of obtaining a solution to my particular medical problem in Sweden, or of the likelihood of success of my request for political asylum. Meanwhile, I was made aware by email correspondence of the process of the eviction going ahead at home in the UK.

The forced withdrawal of my asylum application and return to the UK

On 14 January, I returned to MVKT asking if I might be permitted to travel to the UK for the purpose of obtaining an EHIC card, while keeping alive my application for asylum in Sweden. I was not aware of the possibility of MVKT issuing a travel document, and was asking for temporary access to my passport. I was told by staff at MVKT that they would return my passport only if I withdrew the application for asylum. This I agreed to do essentially out of frustration, leaving Sweden for the UK by a flight later that day. I was without the benefit of legal advice which could have advised that my need merely to travel abroad should not have undermined my status as an asylum-seeker, should I want to continue to pursue that application.

The decision of the MVKT to refuse my request for asylum on the ground that I had withdrawn the application was made on 14/01/2019 (item 03 of folio A); however, I did not receive a copy of that decision until I next travelled to Sweden in September 2020. On returning to the UK on 14/01/2019, I applied for an EHIC card, which I received shortly prior to being evicted from my flat in a letter dated 21 January (item 04 of folio A). While in the UK I became engaged in the series of legal actions described at A Miscarriage of Civil Justice, which forestalled and postponed any intention I had of returning to Sweden to try to re-open my request for asylum; although for reasons of avoiding the persistent attempts on my life in the UK I did not remain there for the entirety of the period January 2019 to March 2020 – the time of the first coronavirus lockdown in the UK, after which I was compelled to remain in the UK.

Following the end of that first lockdown, during July 2020, I travelled through several countries of Eastern Europe. It was during this trip that I experienced a flare-up of symptoms in my rear-thorax, resulting in my visit to a clinic in Novi Sad, Serbia where the most recent MRI scan was conducted. I returned to the UK during August 2020. The response from my GP in London to the evidence of the latest MRI scan only exacerbated my continuing frustration with UK health services. This, together with the ever-present attempts on my life while I remained statically resident in the UK encouraged me to return again to Sweden during September 2020 in the hope of re-opening my request for asylum there.

My return to Sweden in an attempt to re-open the asylum application

Upon returning to MVKT on 17/09/2020, I first received a copy of their decision document dated 14/01/2019 (item 03 of folio A). I was also advised of my right to appeal that decision, which I did in a letter to MVKT dated 21/09/2020 (item A-05). MVKT then referred the appeal to the Migration Court (‘MDS’), which acknowledged the appeal in a letter dated 28/09/2020 (item A-06 – page 2 of this letter is unfortunately missing from my scanned copy). I sent a further letter to MDS dated 21/10/2020 (item A-07) enclosing documentary evidence explaining why I had not been in the position to return to Sweden between January 2019 and March 2020. I was advised by staff at MDS by telephone on 21 October that it was likely to take up to four months for that court to make any decision on the appeal.

The court however made its decision to reject the appeal without any significant delay on 04/11/2020 (item A-08), which I received by post on 11 November. The letter includes advice on requesting leave to appeal to the Migration Court of Appeal. I received a further letter from MDS dated 12/11/2020 (item A-09) advising that the decision was deemed served by 25/11/2020. This allowed me until 16/12/2020 to request leave to appeal.

MDS’s justification for rejecting the appeal was: a) MVKT was justified in refusing asylum considering that I had personally withdrawn the application on 14/01/2019; and: b) the statements I have recently submitted as the reasons for withdrawing the application have no legal bearing upon the validity of MVKT’s decision. After researching the issue, I realised that the content of my appeal should have focused on the conduct of MVKT when I had approached them on 14/01/2019 seeking not to withdraw my application, but only the means of temporary travel outside of Sweden. MVKT had presented it to me that the only option by which I might leave Sweden was to withdraw my application for asylum, so to take back my passport. However, the right of refugees to travel outside the country of refuge, without negatively affecting their status as refugees or asylum-seekers, is guaranteed by Article 28 of the 1951 Refugee Convention, to which Sweden is a contracting party. In advising me as they had on 14/01/2019, staff at MVKT had clearly been motivated in encouraging me to withdraw the application, with disregard to MVKT’s obligations under the Convention. These were grounds to request leave to appeal MDS’s decision – grounds which became fully apparent to me by the end of November 2020 (my alternative option at this time was to attempt a new application for asylum, supported by the additional evidence of violations of human rights against me by the UK between January 2019 and December 2020, as detailed at A Miscarriage of Civil Justice).

Since my arrival in Sweden on 17/09/2020, I had stayed at a single hostel address – Interhostel – and managed to remain there in reasonable safety, without experiencing frequent organised attempts on my life, either from those with proximity to me in the hostel, or within the products I routinely purchased from shops, bars, cafes, and restaurants (this latter ‘indirect’ category of organised attempt on my life being one frequently experienced in the UK, for instance, but also one commonly experienced elsewhere in mainland Europe; and one which I have generally tried to avoid logistically, by the method of constantly changing my location – a method now made especially difficult in the context of the recent pandemic).

During the last week of November 2020, the temporary sanctuary I had enjoyed at Interhostel was interrupted when I was made aware of an organised plot to poison me (through food items of mine stored in a communal fridge) involving certain other guests recently arrived at the hostel, although it is difficult to substantiate these claims in this context. I assumed that this plot would follow me wherever else I might stay in Sweden, and so I decided I had no choice but to leave Sweden entirely at that point.

Urgent departure from Sweden – 28 November 2020

I left Sweden on 28/11/2020 on a flight to Helsinki, from where I caught a ferry to Tallinn, Estonia two days later. From there, on 08/12/2020 I submitted a request to MDS in Stockholm by email for leave to appeal its decision of 04/11/2020 (re: items 10-12 of folio A), reserving the option to return to Sweden at a later date, only if absolutely necessary.

I remained in Tallinn exclusively until the middle of April 2021, staying again at a single hostel address, one familiar to me from previous visits.² I received a decision from MDS in Stockholm by email on 18/01/2021 refusing my request for leave to appeal (re: item A-13). The decision was a flat refusal, with no explicit justification with respect to the grounds of appeal as stated in my letter to MDS of 08/12/2020 (item A-11). Unfortunately, I did not retain a copy of the decision letter itself, and the encrypted message service permits access to the letter from the email shown as item A-13 for a limited period of 30 days only. The decision to refuse leave to appeal was nevertheless a peremptory response from the court to the grounds of my request as submitted on 8 December.

While in Tallinn I was not immune to organised attempts on my life in the ‘indirect’ category described above – the length of my stay there rendered me logistically vulnerable, as it is a relatively small city, with limited options for varying one’s habits of consumption – the factor which those committed to my elimination by discrete methods tended always to exploit. The prevailing coronavirus situation however meant that I had few realistic options for changing my location. In early April 2021 I had been exposed to several non-fatal doses of toxicity from the consumption of regular food items purchased in Tallinn, and these became progressively difficult to avoid the longer I remained there. I was more or less compelled to make the rather desperate choice of returning to Sweden with the idea of making a second application for asylum, principally for the reason of Sweden’s relatively relaxed restriction policy with regard to the coronavirus pandemic.

My second return to Sweden in April 2021 and second asylum application

I took a flight to Stockholm on 14/04/2021 and returned to stay at Interhostel. I had limited options for a suitable place to stay – for reasons of economy I needed to stay at a hostel, and Interhostel was both inexpensive and, unlike most other hostels, enforced no limit on the length of one’s stay. As I returned there I received a letter dated 30/03/2021 from the Returns Unit at MVKT in respect of the refused first asylum application (item A-14). A second letter dated 14/04/2021 followed shortly after my return (item A-15).

The two letters from the Returns Unit were issued on the apparent assumption that I had remained in Sweden since MDS’s decision of 04/11/2020 to dismiss my appeal. I telephoned the Returns Unit following my receipt of the first letter and informed them that I had not been in Sweden since 28 November, that I had recently returned on 14 April, and that I wished to discuss making a second application for asylum, taking into account the exacerbation of the human rights violations against me by the UK during the period January 2019 to December 2020, which were then the subject of my application to the European Court of Human Rights. I returned to MVKT on 20/04/2021 to formally register the second application, showing proof of my departure and absence from Sweden between 28/11/2020 and 14/04/2021. The application was accepted, oddly enough, since the MVKT will not normally accept such a repeat application within four years of a prior decision to refuse asylum (re: items 01-04 and item 12 of folio B).

I attended the initial assessment appointment on 21/04/2021 and was given a date for a full assessment interview on 12/05/2021 (re: item B-03). I attended the interview conducted by Josefin Dahlander and submitted a printed copy of my report. I offered to submit the documentary material and medical evidence in support of the application in the form of an SD card, which Ms Dahlander would not accept. I was asked to submit it in the form of a USB volume instead, which I agreed to do at a later date. I was told to expect a decision on my application within two weeks. On 16/05/2021, I delivered by hand to the MVKT reception an envelope containing printed items 05a to 05d in folio B, together with an attached USB volume containing the data referenced within items 05c & 05d.

I awaited the MVKT’s decision. During the week following my interview, I received an ‘LMA’ card by post from MVKT showing my status as an asylum-seeker, with an expiry date of 31/08/2021 (I had received no LMA card during my first application prior to ‘withdrawing’ it on 14/01/2019). Before I received anything further from MVKT, I began to experience attempts on my life by poisoning in Stockholm. The first of these was on 26/05/2021, when I experienced the presence of toxicity in a bottle of vodka I had purchased, although the source of the attempt remains obscure. After tasting a single drop of the vodka on my tongue (it is my habit to taste-test almost everything I consume in this way), I experienced an immediate significant swelling in the left-occipital region of my brain – I sensed the presence in the vodka of a substance intended to induce a haemorrhage on the brain (it was not the first time I have experienced the effects of this form of toxicity). I drank no more of the vodka and as the symptoms persisted for 1-2 days I made a report to the central police station in Norrmalm on 28/05/2021 about the suspected poisoning, producing my LMA card showing my asylum-seeker status as a form of identity. The police showed little interest in the report and would not accept the bottle of vodka from me as potential evidence of an attempt on my life.

As I had been advised during my interview at MVKT to expect a decision before the end of May, I visited the office on 01/06/2021 after failing to obtain any information by telephone. I was informed that a decision had been made to reject the application. The second application however shared the same case number as my first application; hence it was not clear to me that the desk officer I spoke to was not confusing the two applications. To resolve that ambiguity I asked that the officer provide me with a copy of the decision. For no apparent reason this was refused, and I was told to wait to receive the decision by post, after which I might use the option to appeal. This was irregular – as the officer could see the decision letter on his computer screen, there was no reasonable justification for him not to give me a printed copy of the decision immediately.

When I later searched the application case number at www.migrationsverket.se, it showed that a decision had been made upon the case on 28/05/2021, but the website permitted no access the content of the decision. I continued to wait for the decision by post, and every attempt I made to telephone MVKT for information was unsuccessful, as none of the people involved in the decision were available, and anyone else I spoke to claimed to be unable to speak English, which indeed was a rarity amongst the staff employed at MVKT.

An intensification of attempts on my life in Stockholm

I experienced a further attempt on my life on 08/12/2021, after obtaining a mobile phone sim card which had been handed to me in the street by a vendor. When opening the packet, I noticed that the glue which attached the sim card-holder to the packet was unusually sticky, requiring a lot of force to separate it. My fingers came into contact with some of the glue, and after placing the card in my phone I washed my hands. I was in a café in central Stockholm, and when I left I walked in the direction of Kungsholmen to do some shopping. After about 30 mins, I began to experience symptoms of sickness and faintness, becoming highly stressed, together with the sensation of a swelling once more in the left-occipital region and a pain in the centre of my skull. I washed my hands again urgently, drank 1.5 litres of water, and swallowed 2g of soluble vitamin C. This seemed to halt the progression of the symptoms, and I then continued to walk in the direction of St. Göran’s Hospital Emergency Department. At the hospital they conducted some blood tests; which they then informed me were normal. However, I received no copy of the results from the tests and as far as I am aware the hospital has not conducted any toxicological analysis.

The following day, I went to Norrmalm police station once again to report the suspected poisoning from the sim card, taking the card-holder with its residual glue with me as evidence. The desk officer made a note of the details and I was asked to leave the station. Again the police were unwilling to accept the physical evidence from me or to take any detailed statement of mine in support of the allegation. My reception at the police station was even more curt and disinterested than that I experienced on my visit of 28 May. This was the case in spite of this being my second report of an attempt on my life within the space of two weeks; and in spite of the police being aware (possibly also a symptom of that awareness) of my status as an asylum seeker.

During the remainder of June 2021, I received no letter from MVKT revealing the content of its decision purportedly made on 28/05/2021. At the same time I continued to experience attempts on my life by poisoning, following a similar pattern to those already described. I employed my usual method of defence against these intensified attempts, which was to rigorously test everything I consumed, frequently testing products on my skin when relevant before proceeding to an oral test. I had not experienced such a frequency and intensity of attempts on my life in Sweden prior to May 2021 – the escalation in these attempts was clearly aimed, as it had been previously in the UK and Estonia, at exploiting my lack of mobility due to the coronavirus situation in order to target me more effectively. It is reasonably clear that the motivation and source of the attempts originates internationally, external to Sweden, and acquired its recent impulse and urgency exactly in tandem with my efforts to submit a completed second application to the European Court of Human Rights. It seems that Sweden itself was complicit by default (at least) in the attempts to eliminate me, as no action by either the MVKT or the Stockholm Police in response to my reports of those attempts allowed me the slightest measure of protection against them.

The intransigence of the Stockholm Police

On 01/07/2021, I returned to Norrmalm Police Station to report two consecutive attempts to poison me – on 12 & 30/06/2021 – for which I had retained evidence, should the police have been interested in examining it. I was given a reference number for this report (5000-K770674-21) but to this date have received no formal acknowledgement of this specific report from the police. The other purpose of my visit was to enquire why I had received no correspondence from the police whatsoever in respect of the two earlier reports made on 28/05/2021 and 09/06/2021. I was handed two letters in relation to the first report made on 28 May (ref: 5000-K612070-21 – re: items 01 & 02 in folio C). The decision in the second of those letters is not to initiate a preliminary investigation because “It is obvious that the crime cannot be investigated”. This was not obvious however, and it is only being stated as such to cover for the fact that the police were positively unwilling to collect any evidence that might facilitate an investigation. The police were equally unwilling to communicate the content of this decision to me, as it required my visit in person to the station to elicit these two letters (both dated 01/07/2021, six weeks after the event). When I enquired about the second report made on 9 June, I was told that the report had been sent to me by post on 9 June (which I had not received, and which seemed unlikely as that was the date on which I had made the report). I was informed that no action was being taken in respect of that report; but the desk officer then refused to provide a copy of the report or decision she referred to, and refused to provide me with the reference number of that specific report.

I returned again to the police station on 07/07/2021 to further enquire about the police response to the second report. I spoke to the same desk officer who had initially taken the report on 9 June. She handed me a copy of the recorded report dated 07/07/2021 (i.e., produced on that day, four weeks after the event – re: item C-03); but this was unaccompanied by any decision document. The reference number given in the report is: 5000-K668571-21. I eventually received a copy of the decision letter by post, dated 02/08/2021 (item C-04). The decision was that the preliminary investigation is now dropped because at that point in time (eight weeks after the event) existing evidential material cannot be used to prove who may have been guilty of the crime. However, the report includes only vague and inaccurate details about the event itself – the police were unwilling, either at the time of my report or since that time, to seek a more accurate statement from myself and were therefore not aware or even interested in what evidential material may have existed, as they were positively unwilling to record or collect that evidence.

The Migrationsverket Returns Unit orders my departure from Sweden

During the week of 5-9 July 2021, I received three letters from the Returns Unit at MVKT, two dated 2 July and the third dated 3 July (re: items 07-09 in folio B). The first letter refers to the decision to refuse my second asylum application and urges me to purchase a flight ticket to depart Sweden and to contact the Returns Unit within 14 days. At this point however I had still not received the MVKT’s decision to refuse asylum referred to in this letter – i.e., that which, according to the MVKT’s website, was made on 28/05/2021, in spite of my efforts since 01/06/2021, both in person and by telephone, to obtain a copy of that decision. The third letter dated 03/07/2021 (item B-09) advised me of my right to appeal within five weeks of the order of the Returns Unit. I saw little point in appealing either the decision to refuse asylum or that of the Returns Unit, as it was clear to me at this stage that no public authority in Sweden was prepared to act in such a way as to afford me the slightest protection from the organised attempts on my life which it had been the purpose of my asylum application to avoid. There was simply no option available to me by approach to any Swedish authority that might succeed in discouraging or preventing the attempts on my life. Therefore, during the second week of July, I contacted the Returns Unit to discuss my intended arrangements to depart Sweden by the middle of that month.

An attempted murder at Interhostel on 12 July 2021

On 10/07/2021 I booked a flight ticket leaving Stockholm on 15/07/2021. These plans were interrupted however when I became one of three victims in a vicious random knife-attack (with a machete-type weapon) that occurred at Interhostel during the early hours of Monday 12/07/2021.³ I received a total of nine separate injuries during the attack, one of which was a potentially life-threatening injury to my right temple (which resulted in air entering the skull and eye-socket causing a bleed on the brain); and three of which resulted in fractures to the bones in each of my hands including the left wrist. The police interpreted the attacks as attempted murders, and the perpetrator was arrested at the scene shortly after the attacks. I do not assume however that there is any plausible connection between this attack and the organised attempts on my life which were the cause of my seeking asylum in Sweden. Those attempts on my life are of an altogether different character and impulse; and as their motive remains essentially unchanged in view of my continued survival, I anticipated that they would persist independently and regardless of the fact of my having suffered these additional injuries.

I was treated at the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, initially undergoing emergency surgery on 12/07/2021, and again on 19/08/2021. Between 15/07/2021 and 21/09/2021, I was located in a state hospital ward in southern Stockholm reserved for patients in convalescence, but was told on 20 September that I must leave that facility the following day. While there I received outpatient treatment at Karolinska Hospital for the injuries to my hands. In addition to the three bone fractures, the injuries resulted in the severing of several tendons in each hand, and further surgery is required to restore extensor ability in the left thumb and right fifth digit, although according to the hospital these are not considered to be medically urgent. The hospital however has refused to conduct the further surgery required to complete the treatment to my hands. As a consequence of the combined tendon and nerve damage I currently have degrees of disability in the use of both hands, some of which will be permanent, but for which there will be no significant improvement without the required additional surgery.

The order of the Returns Unit at MVKT for me to depart Sweden was suspended pending the legal process for the prosecution of the perpetrator on a triple charge of attempted murder and/or aggravated assault, and I was granted a six-month temporary residence permit by MVKT upon the application of the City Prosecutor’s Office in Stockholm (re: items 10 & 11 of folio B). The offender’s trial was completed at Stockholm’s Tingsrätt on 13/09/2021, although a verdict and sentence were delayed until 25/10/2021 pending a psychiatric assessment of the offender. The final verdict of the court was to find the offender guilty of attempted murder for the particular attack upon myself, and of aggravated assault in the case of each of the two other victims. The combined sentence of the court was ten years’ imprisonment – the apparent leniency of this sentence is possibly due to mitigation suggested in the defendant’s psychiatric assessment. I have no specific information regarding the findings of that assessment.

Unforeseen consequences of my 2nd application for asylum in Sweden

There was no prospect of obtaining the additional surgery required to my hands by remaining in Sweden as my temporary residence permit did not allow access to any of the usual benefits of full residency, although the permit was valid until 17/02/2022. As I now have no reliable grip in my left hand, the dressings applied to my right hand and forearm during my second operation on 19/08/2021 had since that operation prevented me from the ability to transport myself along with my 20 kilos of luggage. Following the removal of those dressings, on 20/09/2021 I was told I must depart the next day from the hospital facility where I had been in convalescence for 10 weeks. At the same time I was experiencing a considerable intensification of organised attempts on my life through discrete, targeted attempts at poisoning in Stockholm, as a continuation of those attempts discussed above (i.e., of the kind by which I have been generally persecuted at home in the UK, as well as elsewhere in mainland Europe and beyond, during the past 12 years). I was motivated therefore to depart Sweden as soon as possible, and arranged a flight ticket to Belgrade for 24/09/2021 (this was a rescheduling of my earlier Air Serbia flight originally booked for 15/07/2021, but which had then been cancelled with the option to reschedule following the injuries I received at Interhostel on 12/07/2021). My selection of this destination was influenced by the fact that the original flight booking was made in response to the Return Order issued by MVKT on 02/07/2021 (item 07 of folio B), which had forbidden my travelling initially to any destination within the Schengen territory.

Prior to my departure I telephoned my usual contact at the Returns Unit of MVKT, with whom I had previously discussed my intended departure in July. I wanted to take advantage of the availability of a voucher provided by MVKT to cover the expense of fit-to-fly Covid-19 PCR test (approx. €130), although I had paid for the flight ticket myself. My contact at the Returns Unit agreed to provide the voucher, and when I visited the office to collect it I was also given a letter to hand to border staff at the airport upon my departure, which would then be faxed back to MVKT as confirmation of my departure (i.e., this arrangement was that which would normally be required only in the case of my voluntary compliance with an existing return order, not in the case that I was still in possession of a valid residence permit). The circumstances however were exceptional and I saw little point in arguing with MVKT over the necessity of the departure confirmation, and so I complied with that requirement on my departure from Arlanda airport.

After arriving in Belgrade I spent the following 11 weeks in Serbia, staying in Novi Sad where I sought some medical advice from a hand surgeon regarding the treatment required to my hands. On 08/12/2021 I departed Serbia for Albania, and spent the next 4 weeks in Tirana, until early January 2022, when, being similarly motivated to depart that location in response to evidence of continued plots on my life there also, I bought a bus ticket to Athens on 05/01/2022. I did not anticipate a problem at this point in entering a Schengen territory, as I assumed that the earlier restriction had applied only to my initial departure from Sweden, and would anyway be irrelevant as the Order which prescribed that departure was suspended, and I retained a valid residence permit for a Schengen territory. At the Greek border however, I was refused entry to the country due to an apparent entry in the Schengen Information System notifying of an entry ban in force banning my re-entry to the Schengen territory.⁴ The only conceivable explanation for the entry ban was that it had been imposed by Sweden as a consequence of my failed application for asylum there; but I had been given no warning or advice by MVKT as to its intention to impose the ban.

According to the standard information given by MVKT to asylum seekers (re: pp.2-3 of item B-12), Schengen re-entry bans are imposed either where an order for voluntary departure has not been complied with within the period specified in the order, or where the return order is effective immediately without specifying a period for voluntary return. As the return order in my case had allowed a period of 14 days for my voluntary compliance (notwithstanding I had been prevented from complying with the order only by reason of my involuntary hospitalisation), and had thereafter been suspended pending the City Prosecutor’s application for a temporary residence permit on my behalf, and was therefore not enforceable at the time of my departure, neither of the aforementioned conditions can reasonably be judged to have applied in my case.

Having been refused entry to Greece I returned to Tirana, where I remained until 24/01/2022. During the following week I made several telephone calls to MVKT in Stockholm enquiring as to the justification for the Schengen re-entry ban and how it might be lifted. I also emailed my usual contact there attaching a photo showing exit and entry stamps in my passport dated 24/09/2021 confirming my departure from Arlanda airport and my arrival in Belgrade on that date, along with a scan of the document supplied by the Greek border police showing the effect of the entry ban in force (re: item B-13, p.2). The response from my contact at the Returns Unit was that the Schengen re-entry ban had been specified as a condition of MVKT’s original decision letter refusing my asylum application dated 28/05/2021, and that the letter had specified a ban lasting two years. As a reminder (see above), I had not received that decision letter by post from MVKT at the time of its issue, and upon visiting the office on 01/06/2021 a copy of the decision letter had been explicitly refused me, without good reason, by the officer I spoke to during that visit (in spite of the fact that he was clearly able to view the decision letter on his computer terminal, and hence could easily have printed a copy of it). I pointed out to my contact at the Returns Unit that I had not received a copy of the decision letter, and he agreed to send me a copy by email. No such email was forthcoming however, and I have since been unable to make telephone contact with the same person (or his superior) at the Returns Unit.

According to the general information provided by MVKT itself (re: the top of p.3 of item B-12), a two-year Schengen re-entry ban applies automatically in those cases where return is ordered immediately, with no period for voluntary compliance specified. Although there is no available copy of the decision dated 28/05/2021 itself, the Return Order dated 02/07/2021 (item B-07) had followed after a delay of 5 weeks from the date of the decision, and had itself specified a period of 14 days for my voluntary return, so that immediate enforcement cannot have been a condition of the original decision – in which case (according to p.2 of B-12) a one-year Schengen re-entry ban would have been applicable only in the case that I had not voluntarily complied with the Return Order. This suggests that the ban could not, according to MVKT’s general policy, have been a regular stipulation of the decision to refuse asylum. As I am informed by my contact at the Returns Unit that a two-year Schengen re-entry ban was specified in the decision, it is apparent that the ban had been applied as an arbitrary prerequisite to that decision, despite the fact that this overt penalty was both unwarranted and disproportionate in terms of MVKT’s own published policy, and regarding which (so it appears) MVKT was committed to suspend its usual obligations with respect to reasonable transparency.

The relevant EU statute with respect to return decisions affecting asylum seekers and the imposition of entry bans is The Return Directive; together with The Returns Handbook. Both include references to the Schengen Borders Code.⁵ Page 54 of The Returns Handbook makes it clear that the purpose of entry bans is to have a preventive effect upon those who disregard migration rules (something that I am not guilty of in Sweden), and while the Directive allows for discretion on behalf of member states in determining rules for when and for how long entry bans should be applied, it is clear that an essential prerequisite for a return decision and accompanying entry ban is illegal stay on a member’s territory (i.e., an entry ban cannot be imposed independently of a valid return decision). As I was not illegally staying in Sweden at the time of my departure (or indeed at any other time), and as the Return Order of 02/07/2021 (item B-07) had been suspended on 16/08/2021 (item B-10), then implicitly the entry ban should also have been lifted at that point. It would then be difficult to justify re-imposing the entry ban unless I was on a subsequent occasion found to be illegally staying on a Schengen territory. The entry ban may only now be lifted however by the country that imposed it, which would necessitate a legal challenge to MVKT in Sweden. Under my current circumstances that is practically impossible, since I do not possess a copy of the decision imposing the ban, and MVKT is clearly resistant to providing one.

There is a notable parallel here between the selective opacity being exercised by MVKT in its evident resistance to providing due notification of its decision to refuse my asylum application, including the justification for the apparently arbitrary penalty entailed within it, and that exercised simultaneously by the European Court of Human Rights in its effective refusal to do just the same in respect of its decision to find my second application to the Court “inadmissible” (re: my discussion of this in the final section of the page A Miscarriage of Civil Justice). As the revealed conduct of each organisation is, according to their own regular procedures, exceptional and inexplicable – both having occurred effectively in tandem with each other – one is led to suspect that both organisations were acting under some overarching external imperative jointly and systematically imposed upon them.

30 December 2022

Footnotes:

This page forms a logical continuation to the events described in the page: Applications for Political Asylum – dealing with my successive applications for political asylum in Turkey, Norway, and Morocco between 2014 and 2017. However, the processes of my two applications for asylum in Sweden occurred more or less simultaneously with events in the UK in relation to my defence against the housing possession claim, as discussed in: A Miscarriage of Civil Justice. For this reason, the events in Sweden between December 2018 and September 2021 deserve particular attention in comparison and alongside those simultaneous events (letters received from the Swedish authorities within these folios are in Swedish. For my own purposes I have made use of Google translations of the letters – there are no available official translations). [back]
It was from Tallinn that I had submitted my first application to the European Court of Human Rights dated 23/02/2021. It was also shortly before my departure from Estonia that I submitted my four transcript requests to the London courts (on 12/04/2021), following my receipt of ECtHR’s rejection letter dated 18/03/2021, which declared the first application as “incomplete”. The transcript requests were to enable me to complete a second application to ECtHR (sent dated 19/05/2021, following my return to Sweden). [back]
News of this attack made the national news in Sweden, as it was initially suspected that the attack followed the pattern of a terrorist attack (which it transpired not to be). I am not aware that the identities of the victims were made public in these reports. Two of the three victims (including myself) received life-threatening injuries; but there were no fatalities. [back]
Item 13 of folio B includes scans of my bus ticket for this journey and (on p.2) the document provided by the Greek border police confirming that my entry was blocked due to an entry in the Schengen Information System. [back]
The Return Directive – Directive 2008/115/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 16/12/2008 (URL: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2008/115).
The Returns Handbook, ch.11: Entry Bans, pp.54-64 (URL: https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/system/files/2020-09/return_handbook_en.pdf).
Schengen Borders Code – Regulation (EU) 2016/399 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 09/03/2016 (URL: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/399) [all items last accessed: 23/04/2022]. [back]