One day, SVT reporter Hannes Råstam receives a strange phone call that sheds an entirely new light on the wave of arsons that struck Falun in the mid-1970s. The fires wiped out parts of the town’s historic architecture, terrorized the population, and triggered an unprecedented police operation. According to the police investigation, two gangs of youths were behind the fires. A thirteen-year-old girl was held in custody and denied the right to call her mother unless she confessed. Others told reporter Hannes Råstam that they were threatened with being kept locked up “until they rotted.” The police investigation concluded with eight children and youths confessing to having set more than fifty fires. They were placed in children’s homes or sentenced to forensic psychiatric care. Today, all of them maintain that they were innocent and were coerced into confessing. One man now claims that he alone set the fires and wants this miscarriage of justice to be exposed.
