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Gothenburg lawyer Edip Samuelsson regularly represents the Ali Khan family, where several members are singled out as a criminal network, and has been severely punished by the disciplinary committee of the Swedish Bar Association.
He has received a warning and a fine of SEK 50,000 for violating good legal practice in two cases. Three prosecutors in western Sweden had reported him for helping his clients circumvent detention restrictions and divulging information.
Fell in two cases
The Bar Association convicted Edip Samuelsson in two cases and acquitted him in a third. His disciplinary punishment is the second most severe in the community’s arsenal, but the prosecutors who denounced him are not satisfied.
– It’s too lenient a penalty. He would have been sentenced to the severest punishment, exclusion. These are repeated infringements by the lawyer, says Klaudia Mathé, chamber prosecutor at the Economic Crimes Authority in Gothenburg.
– Commits new offenses that violate good legal practices, violate restrictions. These are not unfortunate circumstances but fully conscious actions. He is an experienced criminal lawyer who knows very well what he is doing, he says.
We have been unsuccessfully searching Edip Samuelsson for over a week for comment.
Messages to wife
The case in which the prosecutor and Edip Samuelsson met concerned a man who was charged with several cases of financial crimes, including false invoices. During the investigation, Samuelsson helped his client, according to the prosecutor, deliver messages about financial crimes to his wife.
The case went to the Court of Appeal, where Samuelsson was removed as a lawyer at the request of the Chancellor of Justice (JK). The defendant was convicted in July of this year of a serious accounting crime and serious fraud.
In another case, Samuelsson was denounced by prosecutor Daniel Larson in Gothenburg. The lawyer defended a person suspected of attempted murder, who is considered close to the gang leader Eddie Jobe in Biskopsgården in Gothenburg.
Samuelsson contacted an alibi witness to the police and provided him with information about what the client, detained with restraints, had said. According to the prosecutor, this gave the witness the opportunity to give the suspect an alibi. When it was all discovered, however, it meant that the value of the evidence decreased, which was considered to be a disadvantage for the client.
Surprised by the punishment
The court’s prosecutor, Daniel Larson, is also surprised that the Swedish Bar Association did not use the harshest punishment against Samuelsson.
-I am a bit surprised because if they came to the conclusion that he has committed rape in two cases, I saw in front of me that it would be so serious that they would exclude him, he tells Dagens Nyheter.
The disciplinary committee of the Bar Association writes in its decision:
In summary, the board has found it clear that Edip Samuelsson has committed on two occasions in a relatively short time serious violations of good legal practice in the manner of acting in violation of the restrictions announced to clients. In the board’s opinion, his contacts with client D, E’s wife appear to be particularly serious … Therefore, the board gives Edip Samuelsson a warning … and orders him … to pay a fine to the SEK 50,000 Bar Association “.
Big drug case
In a third case, the disciplinary committee acquitted Edip Samuelsson. The case concerned a major drug case against three brothers from the Ali Khan family, all of whom are part of the most criminal branch of the Ali Khan family. According to the prosecutor, Samuelsson and other defense attorneys provided information between the three brothers – while they were detained with restraints – which allowed them to leave a consistent version.
“In the opinion of the board, it has not been shown that Edip Samuelsson, in the manner alleged by X, provided information to Y or otherwise cooperated with him that violated the advertised restrictions to the client. Therefore, the notification does not leads to no action “, writes the disciplinary committee in its acquittal.
– I have made a report and I support it, but obviously they have made a different assessment and believe that it is not possible to prove it. I still think these are very serious things, chamber prosecutor Ulrika Bentelius Egelrud, who made the report, tells DN.
“Second hardest penalty”
The Secretary General of the Bar Association, Mia Edwall Insulander, believes that the sentence imposed is serious although it has not been ruled out.
– It is the second hardest penalty. It is a serious violation of good legal practices and is therefore a serious sanction. The action came after a serious error of judgment on the part of the lawyer, it was not to intentionally damage the investigation, he says and continues:
– Therefore, there was no exclusion. Exclusion is a very strong intervention, it means a professional ban.
He says that in recent years one lawyer has been excluded from the community per year, in 2017 there were three. The penalty warning was issued 28 times last year and 22 times the previous year.
“Personal attack”
Edip Samuelsson has submitted submissions to the Swedish Bar Association and the Court of Appeal rejected all the allegations. In his reply to the Swedish Bar Association, he claims that a clique of prosecutors in Gothenburg wants to scare him and leave him passive because he was critical and not “He acted recklessly”writes Göteborgs-Posten.
And to the Court of Appeal he wrote earlier that he “He perceives the prosecutor’s actions almost as a personal attack against me”, according to GP. The prosecutor Klaudia Mathé, who denounced her in that case, dismisses her complaint as “disgusting”.
– It’s just an invention on your part. I have nothing personal against the lawyer, I did not know that other complaints had been made. There was a clear basis for the report, he says.
Edip Samuelsson has represented at least 27 times the criminal part of the Ali Khan clan-like family network, which police say controls parts of the crime in Gothenburg, writes GP. Recently, the network has been in conflict with another criminal gang in Gothenburg, Backagänget, something that has resulted in shootings, high-profile barricades and a dramatic encounter between the gangs at a hotel in Gothenburg.
Personal relationship risk
According to prosecutor Klaudia Mathé, there is a risk that lawyers have a more personal rather than professional relationship with their clients when they represent the same people all the time.
– At the same time, offenders may have expectations of lawyers and request services. It can create distorted competition when there are lawyers who want to circumvent the restrictions and others do not, she says.
Mia Edwall Insulander, Secretary General of the Swedish Bar Association, also emphasizes the importance of lawyers acting independently.
– Even if you have to be loyal to your client, it is important that independence cannot be questioned, he says.
“Gangster lawyers sit on clients’ laps”
Attorney Viktor Banke, a well-known legal polemic on social media, Viktor Banke admits after last year’s debate on the behavior of certain attorneys that “there is a risk that attorneys and clients have gotten too close.”
– The real gangster lawyers are those who sit on the laps of their clients. Those who enter with money in custody or let their detained clients have contact with the outside world. Who is not able to be independent in relation to clients, probably for fear of losing them, tells Dagens Juridik and continues:
– Those lawyers risk the reputation of the rest of us.
Hanif Bali, Member of Parliament (M), believes that the Swedish Bar Association should have excluded Edip Samuelsson. He says that clan crime leads to corruption, as in Italy, where lawyers are not loyal to legal ethics and the rule of law, but to the clan and family.
– It was the weakness of the Bar Association not to exclude him. The question is whether the community that has special privileges through legislation is the appropriate institution to handle this work. In Norway, it is a special authority that does it, she says.
