Salwan Momika shooting: Five arrested after anti-Islam campaigner shot dead in Sweden ahead of Quran burning trial
Salwan Momika shooting: Five arrested after anti-Islam campaigner shot dead in Sweden ahead of Quran burning trial
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Five people have been arrested in Sweden after an Iraqi anti-Islam campaigner was shot dead hours before a court verdict was due in a trial over his burning the Quran. The five were arrested in connection with the shooting of Salwan Momika, 38, an Iraqi refugee, in a house in Sodertalje town near Stockholm on Wednesday, police said. They did not say if the gunman was among those detained.
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Momika had burned and desecrated copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, either in public or in social media broadcasts in 2023. "I can assure you that the security services are deeply involved because there is obviously a risk that there is a connection to a foreign power," Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said at a news conference on Thursday.
A Stockholm court had been due to sentence Momika and another man on Thursday in a criminal trial over "offences of agitation against an ethnic or national group," in connection with the Koran burnings but postponed the verdict. Sweden in 2023 raised its terrorism alert to the second-highest level and warned of threats against Swedes at home and abroad after the Quran burnings, most of them by Momika, outraged Muslims and triggered threats from jihadists.
Sweden's Security Service told Reuters it was assessing the potential impact of the shooting “on Swedish security”. Burning the Quran is seen by Muslims as a blasphemous act because they consider it the literal word of God. While the Swedish government condemned the wave of Quran burnings in 2023, it is widely regarded as a protected form of free speech.
