Man who burned Quran killed in Sweden

Swedish police on Thursday said five people had been arrested over the fatal shooting of an Iraqi man who carried out several Quran burnings.

The man had been due to attend Stockholm District Court later in the day for the verdict in a case over “offenses of agitation against an ethnic or national group.”

What we know so far

The incident occurred indoors and when police arrived they found a man who had been “hit by shots and the man was taken to the hospital,” the statement said.

Police later said they had made several arrests in connection with the shooting.

“Police arrested five people overnight. Prosecutors have detained them,” a police statement said.

“We’re in the very early stages,” Prosecutor Rasmus Oman confirmed told the AFP news agency. “There’s a lot of information gathering,” he said.

Swedish media said Momika had been streaming live on TikTok at the time he was shot.

The 38-year-old Salwan Momika, a Christian Iraqi, staged several desecrations and burnings of Islam’s holy book.

What was the case against Momika?

Momika and co-protester Salwan Najem were in August charged with “agitation against an ethnic group” on four occasions in 2023.

The charge sheet says the pair desecrated the Koran, including setting it on fire, while making derogatory remarks about Muslims. On one occasion, the protest took place outside a Stockholm mosque.

Sweden’s relations with several Middle Eastern countries were strained by the pair’s protests.

Swedish police allowed the demonstrations, citing freedom of speech, while also filing charges against him.

Protesters in Iraq twice stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad in July 2023, setting fires within the compound on the second occasion.

Sweden’s intelligence service Sapo raised its threat level to four on a scale of five the following month, saying the country had become a “prioritized target” because of the Koran burnings.

Momika last March sought asylum in Norway, which deported him back to Sweden several weeks later.

rc/wd (AFP, AP)