About This Episode
Rättegångspodden, one of Sweden's most listened-to podcasts, has sparked controversy over its approach to telling the stories of high-profile criminal cases. The show, hosted on the Acast platform and created by Nils Bergman, ranks as Sweden's fifth-largest podcast with 173,000 weekly listeners, yet operates largely outside established ethical guidelines for true crime media production.
The podcast's production method leverages Sweden's public access principle, known as offentlighetsprincipen, which grants journalists and producers access to sensitive materials including court proceedings, police interrogations, wiretap recordings of suspects, and emergency 112 call recordings. By using these publicly available audio files, Rättegångspodden creates documentary-style narratives that draw listeners into some of Sweden's most serious criminal cases.
However, this legal access has created an ethical blind spot. In interviews with Swedish national broadcaster SVT's Kulturnyheterna, five families of crime victims whose cases were featured in the podcast reported a troubling discovery: they were never asked for permission before their testimony was broadcast. The families described feeling exposed and violated by the experience, with particular concern about losing control over how their stories were presented to a national audience.
The criticism highlights a growing tension in Nordic true crime media. While Swedish law permits the use of court and police audio materials for journalistic purposes, the families' concerns suggest that legal permission and ethical responsibility are not always aligned. Victims and their relatives who testify in court proceedings may have no awareness that their voices—often recounting traumatic experiences—will be repackaged and distributed as entertainment to hundreds of thousands of listeners.