In the midst of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, Roger Richthoff shared a film on Facebook thanking Russia for the invasion, which contains Russian misinformation about Ukrainian biological weapons and allegations that Jews are financing the Nazis in Ukraine who want to exterminate Christians.
Richthoff wrote in connection with the division that the United States and Ukraine have denied the information about the biological weapons but that "now that bubble has burst".
He has after the criticism removed the film.
Security-classified information
The center's Martin Ådahl reacts strongly to this.
In the past, they would have had to leave the Riksdag if they had spread grossly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, he says.
- Now we also have a situation where we have conspiracy theories spread from the Kremlin and Putin about Ukraine that have been shared by a person who had access to security-classified defense information and who also in the Defense Committee has to handle issues of a security nature for Sweden.
Very inappropriate
- If you divide disinformation campaigns in support of Putin and Russia against Ukraine in perhaps the most sensitive issue of all, namely the totally wrong claim that Ukraine produces biological weapons, then you should not represent any party in Sweden's defense committee, says Ådahl.
- If it had been a member with us, it would not have been allowed to represent our party in any way at any level.
For Sweden's sake, it is very inappropriate for such a person to sit on the defense committee, he says.
According to Henrik Vinge, Richthoff refuses to voluntarily leave his seat on the defense committee.
The party leadership has therefore decided that he may not represent the party in the committee and has at the same time opened an exclusion case against him.
Meanwhile, Richthoff is suspended.
According to the Riksdag's new rules from 1 January, members who become wild may not retain the seat allocated by their party in a committee.