Ian Lundin, Alex Schneiter and Lundin Energy continue to make every effort to avoid that they will be held to account in court, including the use of time consuming procedures with little legal merit. For instance, in April 2020, the suspects requested the Stockholm District Court to put an immediate end to the entire war crimes investigation. They argued that the length of the investigation exceeded the reasonable time requirement of the European Convention on Human Rights. Their request is not supported by Swedish procedural law and the legal arguments that were put forward are not supported by the case law of the European Court. On 4 May, the request was rejected by the Stockholm District Court. The subsequent appeal to the Svea Court of Appeal was referred back to the District Court, that again rejected the request on 2 December. On 11 December, the suspects lodged yet another appeal with the Svea Court of Appeal.
In another development, the Swedish Prosecution Authority for the fourth time this year has granted the suspects and Lundin Energy extra time, until 4 January 2021, to comment on the investigation and request additional investigative measures. The bulk of the case files have already been shared in November 2018.
Ian Lundin, Alex Schneiter and Lundin Energy seem to let their lawyers make use of any legal procedures that can complicate the work of the prosecution. By doing so they are delaying the course of justice. From the perspective of the people who have been harmed by war crimes, they seem to be working tirelessly to deny them access to justice.