Swedish MP Katja Nyberg denies taking cocaine, attributing residues in her blood to unclear metabolites. The National Board of Forensic Medicine rejects this, stating that such byproducts only form after cocaine use. The incident stems from a police stop during the Christmas holiday that led to her driving license being revoked.
Swedish Member of Parliament Katja Nyberg, a former Sweden Democrat, was stopped by police during the Christmas holiday. Traces of narcotics were found in her blood, leading to the revocation of her driving license, as previously reported by Aftonbladet.
In an interview with the newspaper Kvartal, Nyberg maintains that she did not take cocaine. She attributes the findings to metabolites—byproducts from a breakdown process in the body—and cannot explain their presence. “I have thought about it a lot,” she says in the podcast.
The National Board of Forensic Medicine disputes this explanation. Press officer Jimmy Blomqvist Larsson tells Dagens Nyheter that cocaine breaks down into the metabolite benzoylecgonine, which cannot form without prior cocaine ingestion. “You cannot get that without having had cocaine in you before,” he says. Blomqvist Larsson notes that law enforcement uses such traces to detect cocaine use: “If you don't find cocaine but find this instead, then there has been cocaine in the body.”
Nyberg has previously stated that she had no active substance in her system. The authority emphasizes that the byproduct cannot arise randomly.
