15.3.10

Η ΥΠΟΘΕΣΗ HAIJBY

Gustaf V at the time of the First World War
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The Haijby affair was a political affair in Sweden in the 1950s, involving the conviction and imprisonment of Kurt Haijby for blackmail of King Gustaf V.
Haijby was born in 1897 as Kurt Johansson. In 1912 he and another boy scout were granted an audience with king Gustaf V. When Johansson grew older he lived a life in crime and was convicted several times for theft and fraud. While trying to escape prison he shot a police officer dead. After being released he changed his name and tried to open a restaurant. As he was a convicted criminal he could not get a licence to sell liquor. He then applied to the king and was granted a second audience in 1932 to put forward his case. The king, Gustav V, then allegedly seduced Haijby.
Haiby's wife, Anna Haijby, when learning about this, filed for divorce, citing her husband's sexual relationship with the king as cause for divorce. Fearing that this would become known, court officials convinced the couple to settle for an amicable no-fault divorce. Haijby was encouraged to emigrate to the United States, where he was to receive 3,000 Swedish kronor from the royal court and start a new life. However, when he arrived in the USA, there was no money for him. He had to return to Sweden where he, unemployed and penniless, asked for support from the court.
During several years, money from the court financed a number of failed enterprises that Haijby tried. There is no evidence of outright blackmail on Haijby's part, but the court was obviously trying to buy his silence. In all, Haijby received 170,000 Swedish kronor from the court and perhaps much more from the king's private funds.
Haijby later claimed that he was the lover of the king in the years between 1936 and 1947.
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In 1952, after a parody of a fair trial, Haijby was sentenced to eight years hard labor for blackmail, which in 1953 was reduced to six years by a court of appeals. Haijby committed suicide in 1965 .
Haijby had reported the treatment he had received to the Swedish Chancellor of Justice. The results of the investigations, the bulk of which were classified until 1981, effectively acquitted the monarchy. There is nothing to support the claim that Haijby was seduced by the king as a young boy, but most commentators believe that he had a sexual relationship with the king in the 1930s. It is well known that the king was homosexual, and in his old age he became rather uninhibited about it.
However, the fact that the Swedish court was prepared to pay Haijby such large sums to suppress his accusations has by some been taken as evidence that they were true. (en.wikipedia.org)

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