An Iraqi refugee in Sweden who repeatedly burned the Quran in 2023, sparking outrage in Muslim countries, has been shot dead south of Stockholm, investigators said Thursday, with Sweden’s prime minister suggesting “a foreign power” might have been involved.
Prosecutor Rasmus Oman confirmed to AFP that an investigation had been opened into the murder of 38-year-old Salwan Momika and that five people had been arrested.
“We’re in the very early stages… there’s a lot of information gathering. Five people have been detained suspected of involvement in the crime,” Oman said.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told reporters at a press conference: “I can guarantee that the security services are deeply involved in this because there is obviously a risk that there is also a link to foreign power.”
A Stockholm court had been due to rule Thursday whether Momika, a Christian Iraqi, was guilty of inciting ethnic hatred but said it had postponed its ruling until February 3 as a result of his death.
Police responded late Wednesday to a call about a shooting in an apartment building in the city of Sodertalje, where Momika lived.
There they found a man who had been shot, and who later died in hospital, a police statement said.
Several media outlets reported that the shooting may have been broadcast live on social media.
The Aftonbladet newspaper said the attacker was able to gain entry into the building through the roof.
In August, Momika and a fellow protester Salwan Najem were charged with “agitation against an ethnic group” on four occasions in the summer of 2023.
According to the charge sheet, the two desecrated the Koran, including burning it, while making derogatory remarks about Muslims — on one occasion outside a Stockholm mosque.
“I’m next on the list,” Najem wrote on X after Momika’s death, telling Swedish media that he had received death threats.
Relations between Sweden and several Middle Eastern countries were strained by the pair’s protests.
Iraqi protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad twice in July 2023, starting fires within the compound on the second occasion.
In August of that year, Sweden’s intelligence service Sapo raised its threat level to four on a scale of five after the Koran burnings had made the country a “prioritised target”.
The Swedish government condemned the desecrations while noting the country’s constitutionally protected freedom of speech and assembly laws.
– ‘Don’t want to harm’ Sweden –
Speaking to Aftonbladet in April 2023, Momika said he never intended his Koran burnings to cause any trouble in Sweden, where he had lived since 2018.
“I don’t want to harm this country that received me and preserved my dignity,” he said.
In October 2023, the Swedish Migration Agency revoked his residency permit, citing false information in his original application, but he was granted a temporary one as it said there was an “impediment to enforcement” of a deportation to Iraq.
The month before, Iraq had requested his extradition over one of the Koran burnings.
In March 2024, Momika left Sweden to seek asylum in Norway, telling AFP that Sweden’s freedom of expression and protection of human rights was “a big lie”.
Norway deported him back to Sweden several weeks later
Before arriving in Sweden, Momika’s social media accounts tell a story of an erratic political career in Iraq.
It included links to a Christian armed faction during the fight against the Islamic State group, the creation of an obscure Syriac political party, rivalries with influential Christian paramilitaries and a brief arrest.
He also joined the massive anti-corruption protests that gripped Iraq in late 2019, which were met with a crackdown that killed over 600 people nationwide.
In October 2023, a Swedish court convicted another man of inciting ethnic hatred with a 2020 Koran burning, the first time the country’s court system had tried the charge for desecrating Islam’s holy book.
Prosecutors have previously said that under Swedish law, the burning of a Koran can be seen as a critique of the book and the religion, and thus be protected under free speech.
However, depending on the context and statements made at the time, it can also be considered “agitation against an ethnic group”.
