Three journalists, including the editor-in-chief of one of Sweden's largest newspapers, have been charged after purchasing a gun in order to demonstrate how easy it is to obtain illegal weapons.
Expressen editor Thomas Mattsson was charged along with a senior news executive and a reporter.
Their offence relates to an incident in autumn 2010 when the paper's reporter took just five hours to acquire a 7.65mm Crvena Zastava pistol.
Mattsson made the editorial decision to buy the weapon, which was immediately turned over to the police.
He saw it as a valid journalistic exercise designed to show the ease with which guns can be bought in the Swedish city of Malmö.
Mattsson said: "If journalists can't work under cover, investigative journalism is robbed of one of its most important opportunities for unveiling wrongdoing."
But the prosecutor, Jörgen Larsson, argued that the charges were justified. He believed testing its defence of justification was in the public interest.
Source: The Local
