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– It gives me chills when I think about it, says experienced forensic technician Björn Thurfors.
He’s been convinced for a long time: something is wrong, something that allows criminals to go free. For several years, he has investigated on his own initiative how the National Forensic Center, NFC, handles DNA traces. The result is in 40 folders at his home in Öland.
– The problem for me was that I didn’t believe in myself. It has huge consequences for the judiciary if they don’t know about it.
Unknown in the judiciary
It was during a meeting with NFC that Björn Thurfors found out about the detail that surprised him
They told him they had a limit value, a stop for DNA samples: if the DNA content in, for example, a bloodstain is below this limit, the NFC usually does not do more analysis and the trace ends in a freezer in the basement.
But the police, prosecutors and defense attorneys are not informed of this.
The reason NFC does not report all the analyzes separately is that it “would provide too lengthy material for prosecutors and courts.”
A German study shows otherwise
NFC’s own research shows that there is “little or no chance of achieving a useful DNA result” below the limit.
But according to one German survey, performed on real crime scene leads, it is possible to obtain useful DNA profiles in more than every third case that falls below the Swedish cutoff value. Something that is confirmed by the experts with whom SVT has spoken.
In recent years, there have been approximately 25,000 tracks a year that have not been fully analyzed. For more than 20 years, NFC has had a cut-off value for DNA analysis, which means that there are large amounts of incompletely analyzed traces in the basement freezer.
NFC: required selection
In the case of serious crimes, NFC performs more in-depth analysis and can then go below the limit value. But Björn Thurfors and SVT have carefully gone through around 20 felony investigations and in all of them they found DNA traces that ended up below the limit and therefore were not fully analyzed.
NFC Top Manager Helena Trolläng believe that NFC does not have the ability to analyze all tracks sent by the police.
– We receive 100,000 cases a year in different categories of crimes of different nature with very different complexity. If we want to have any opportunity to actually respond to something that is useful, we must make a selection along with the research activities, he says.
