ONE of Scotland’s top lawyers has said the Lord Advocate should review the case of a young Swedish woman whose body was found on Prestwick beach a decade ago and who was deemed to have committed suicide.

Annie Borjesson was 30 years old when a dog walker found her lifeless body in December, 2005.

Within the first few days, police concluded she had drowned herself in the sea, an assumption lawyer Aamer Anwar said appeared to have been “a very swift and easy conclusion”.

Annie’s family and friends never believed that and, over the years, various independent reports have been produced challenging the suicide assumption.

However, the Crown Office have insisted that there has been no fresh evidence to merit re-opening the case.

Anwar said her family were entitled to closure, and told The National: “One cannot even begin to imagine the pain of Annie’s family. At first instance there appear to be glaring inconsistencies in the various autopsies carried out into the cause of death. Her family are entitled to closure but the only way that will ever be possible, is if they know the truth.

“At the very least the Lord Advocate should review the papers and consider any new evidence rather than relying on what appears to have been a very swift and easy conclusion reached by Strathclyde Police a decade ago.”

Meanwhile, in the week of the tenth anniversary of Annie’s death, her family and friends have spoken of the pain and devastation they still feel, and their desire to uncover the truth.

Maria Jansson, a life-long friend of Annie’s, has been at the forefront of the campaign to re-open the case, and revealed that although she has been close to giving up, she still believes the real truth will come out.

“Ten years is an inhumanely long time to not know what happened, but we know that there are other families that have fought for an even longer time to find the truth about what happened to their loved ones,” Jansson told us.

“We would never ever have put ourselves through what we have over these past years, and started our own investigations if we did not strongly believe that something terrible happened to our Annie.

“Right now we have very little strength left and we feel that we must focus on the hard and dark period that is ahead of us.

“We have not been able to properly grieve. Our lives have changed totally after she was found dead. It was so sudden, unexplained and with so many strange things surrounding her death in suspicious circumstances.”

Guje, Annie’s mother, has been on several trips to Scotland, leading vigils and marches, as well as attempting investigations of her own, but is now very ill.

The 62-year-old said she “continues to hope and pray” that police will re-open the case.

Annie had been in Scotland for a year, and was living in Edinburgh at the time of her death. Why she travelled to Prestwick is just one unanswered question in a series of mysteries surrounding her demise.

We have obtained documents linked to key parts of the police decision, and upon inspection, it is easy to see why the family believe they failed to carry out an extensive investigation. They may also explain why the case has never been officially discontinued.

One key aspect is the difference in the autopsy reports filed in Ayr and in Sweden. The original post mortem examination here stated there were small areas of bruising and scratches, on Annie’s body. However, Swedish examiners were surprised at the bruises, which they insisted were not a result of post mortem lividity, something pathologists in Ayr claimed.

Bone marrow samples were found to contain algae present in fresh water. This did not mean that Annie was drowned in freshwater, as she may have drank water that day, but there was no evidence of salt water.

The Crown Office have again dismissed the possibility of foul play. A spokesperson said: “The death of Annie Borjesson was thoroughly investigated by Strathclyde Police and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, who gave detailed consideration to all the facts and circumstances of the case and concluded that there were no suspicious circumstances.

“Any new, credible and reliable evidence which comes to light will be considered.”

Kenneth Roy, the author of Scottish Review reports into Annie’s death, said that although the Crown Office claimed the case had not been closed, they refused to examine evidence he put to them.

“I often wondered what the police and the Crown Office had to lose by taking a fresh look at the evidence, but lately I have begun to wonder what they have to hide,” Roy said.

“I approached the case with an open mind. Now, with the passage of time, I have come to suspect that Annie Borjesson was murdered.”