The Eurovision world has its eyes on Malmö today. Not necessarily for the expected reason of the Grand Final taking place today, but for the story surrounding Joost Klein from the Netherlands. Since our last update this morning, two more pieces of news have been revealed.
High priority meeting ongoing in Malmö
Dutch journalist Aran Bade is on site in Malmö to keep the country updated on the story surrounding Joost Klein. He reports this morning that a new high priority meeting is currently taking place. Not just between the EBU and the Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS, but also with NPO. The NPO is the governing body of all public broadcasters in the Netherlands. The highest director of NPO, Frederieke Leeflang, arrived at the hotel in question this morning for an emergency meeting between herself and representatives of the EBU and AVROTROS.
Swedish police receive complaint for ‘threats’
Furthermore, Swedish local police have confirmed to the press that they have investigated a case in Malmö regarding Eurovision. In this case, a man – presumably Joost Klein – is suspected of ‘unlawful threats’ involving an employee of the Eurovision Song Contest on Thursday night after the semifinal. The man in question, Joost, was interrogated by Swedish police on Friday night. All parties involved in the incident were interrogated last night. It is presumed that the incident involved a verbal threat.
The case will now, as is common in Sweden, be forwarded to the prosecutor. Police have conducted and completed their research, with the prosecutor now having to decide if Joost Klein will face a lawsuit in Sweden. That process could take weeks and will therefore not be completed before tonight’s Grand Final.
What’s next?
Currently, it is hard to predict the potential outcome of this incident. Like in many countries, a suspect is innocent until proven guilty in Sweden, so a participation tonight is definitely not ruled out. There have been no reports of Joost being detained, so it’s safe to assume he is currently in his hotel. However, the EBU may still disqualify an entrant for being under investigation in Sweden. If they would do so, it would be first time in Eurovision history that someone is disqualified during Eurovision week. News is expected sooner than later, but we’ve been saying that for approximately 21 hours now…
ESCXTRA.com will keep you posted as soon as more information is revealed.
