Five people have been arrested after an Iraqi refugee and anti-Islam campaigner was shot dead in Sweden hours before a court verdict was due in his trial over burning the Qur’an, police said.
In an attack that the prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said could be linked to “a foreign power”, Salwan Momika, 38, was shot late on Wednesday in a house in the town of Södertälje, near Stockholm. In 2023 Momika outraged many people in Sweden and around the world by burning copies of the Qur’an in public demonstrations.
A Stockholm court had been due pass judgment on Momika and another man on Thursday in a criminal trial over “offences of agitation against an ethnic or national group”, but said the verdict had been postponed.
A police spokesperson confirmed that a man had been shot dead in Södertälje, but gave no other details. Police did not say whether the suspected shooter was among those detained.
The other defendant in the court case posted a message on X saying: “I’m next.” » | Reuters in Stockholm | Thursday, January 30, 2025
THE NEW YORK TIMES:
Man Who Burned Quran in Stockholm Is Killed: Salwan Momika, an Iraqi immigrant in Sweden, set off large protests when he burned a Quran in 2023. He had been scheduled to appear in court on Thursday. »
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