5 folks arrested over homicide because the Swedish prime minister stated the capturing could possibly be linked to a international energy.
An Iraqi refugee in Sweden has been killed hours earlier than a court docket ruling on his repeated burning of the Quran in anti-Islam demonstrations final yr.
Police introduced on Thursday that that they had made 5 arrests in reference to the homicide of 38-year-old Salwan Momika, who was reportedly shot in a home within the city of Sodertalje close to Stockholm the day prior to this.
“I can guarantee you that the safety providers are deeply concerned as a result of there’s clearly a threat that there’s a connection to a international energy,” Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson stated at a information convention.
Vice Prime Minister Ebba Busch condemned the homicide.
“It’s a menace to our free democracy. It should be met with the complete pressure of our society,” she wrote on X.
The Stockholm District Court docket, which had been set to rule Thursday on whether or not Momika and co-defendant Salwan Najem have been responsible of “agitation in opposition to an ethnic or nationwide group”, stated that it had postponed its verdict to February 3 on account of the previous’s demise.
In keeping with the cost sheet issued in August, the pair had desecrated the Quran, together with burning it, whereas making derogatory remarks about Muslims – on one event exterior a Stockholm mosque.
Prosecutor Rasmus Oman confirmed that an investigation had been opened into the homicide of Momika. “We’re within the very early levels … there’s loads of info gathering,” he stated.
A number of media retailers reported that the capturing could have been broadcast dwell on social media.
Police had responded late Wednesday to a name a couple of capturing in an house constructing the place Momika lived within the metropolis of Sodertalje, discovering a person who had been “hit by photographs”.
A video seen by information company Reuters confirmed police selecting up a telephone and ending a livestream that seemed to be from Momika’s TikTok account.
Outrage
Sweden in 2023 raised its “terrorism” alert to the second-highest stage and warned of threats in opposition to Swedes at dwelling and overseas after the Quran burnings outraged many Muslims around the globe.
Iraqi protesters reacted by storming the Swedish embassy in Baghdad twice in July 2023, beginning fires inside the compound on the second event.
Momika, who had lived in Sweden since 2018, was confronted with doable deportation in 2023 for allegedly giving false info on his residency utility.
However Sweden’s migration company ended up granting him a short lived residency allow after deciding he risked torture and inhumane remedy in Iraq.
In March 2024, Momika left Sweden to hunt asylum in Norway, saying that Sweden’s freedom of expression and safety of human rights was “an enormous lie”.
However Norway deported him again to Sweden a number of weeks later.
