(Local) A Swedish activist who grounded a flight to save a rejected Afghan asylum seeker from being deported has appealed her fine, arguing that one of the lay judges should have been recused.
Gothenburg District Court last month fined Elin Ersson 3,000 kronor ($325) for her refusal to take a seat on the aircraft at Landvetter Airport in July last year. Her livestreamed protest went viral on Facebook.
Ersson has now appealed the sentence and is also arguing that she should be given a retrial, after the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper revealed that one of the lay judges had as early as July — months before the trial even started — called Ersson a “criminal” in a social media comment.
