THE family of a Swedish woman who died while working in Scotland has urged the lord advocate to order the release of documents relating to her death, saying the results of a private autopsy suggest she was murdered.

Police in Ayrshire concluded that Annie Borgesson, 30, from Tibro, near Gothenburg, drowned after her body was found on a beach near Prestwick airport in December 2005.

She had been on her way to catch a flight home after a six-month work placement at the Scotch Whisky Heritage Centre in Edinburgh.

The official cause of her death was recorded as drowning, after either a fall that knocked her unconscious, leaving her in shallow water, or suicide.

However, an autopsy carried out in Sweden suggests that she had extensive bruising to her head, most likely to have been caused by a powerful blow to the temple. Her waist-length blonde hair had been hacked and her personal organiser was missing.

Her family is determined to seek justice for their daughter and has not yet had her buried. Her body remains in the deep freeze of an undertaker in Gothenburg and further tests are to be carried out by experts at Stockholm University.

The Crown Office has ruled out a fatal accident inquiry, but lawyers representing Guje Borgesson, 53, Annie’s mother, have written to Elish Angiolini, the lord advocate, urging her to order Strathclyde police and the procurator fiscal at Kilmarnock to reopen their files into the death.

The letter states: “If the police and fiscal did everything properly from the start and treated the scene as a potential crime scene, then they have nothing to hide.

“However, their refusal to allow my client access to reports when they have closed the investigation suggests there may have been complacency.”

Guje Borgesson, who spoke to her daughter two days before her death, rejects suggestions she may have been suicidal.

On the day she died, a witness reported seeing her on the beach close to where she was found, talking to two men. She had not bought a flight ticket but had her passport and two books to be returned to her home town’s library. She had also made an appointment with her hairdresser in Sweden.

Before leaving Edinburgh, she had paid a month’s rent in advance and had bought a card to enable her to go swimming on her return to Scotland.

“Annie was a beautiful young woman, happy and lively,” said her mother, who has offered a £10,000 Harley Davidson motorbike to anybody who provides evidence that leads to a murder inquiry.

“She was a very strong swimmer and would have to have gone far out in shallow, very cold water to drown herself. If she had done that, it would be remarkable to find her bag washed up beside her.

“I am so disappointed with the attitude of the police and prosecutors. They made a decision at an early stage that no crime had been committed and are sticking to it, despite the evidence.

“I would guess she was struck by someone intending to rob her. The only thing missing from her bag was her leather-bound Filofax, but someone feeling around her bag in the dark and in a hurry probably mistook it for a wallet.

“Given the position of her body, right against the wall, I believe she was heaved over the wall onto the beach, that the incoming tide failed to bring her round and she drowned in a metre of water. But the person who struck the blow is responsible for her death, so this should be a murder inquiry.”

Strathclyde police say officers did “all in their power” to investigate the death and ruled out foul play.

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