Assassination of Qur’an Burning Protester May be Work of ‘Foreign Power’, Says Swedish Prime Minister

The Swedish Prime Minister says the national security services are investigating whether a “foreign power” may be behind the execution of an Iraqi critic of Islam in his country during a press conference where the leader admitted the government has lost control of a wave of shootings and bombings.

Moderate Party leader and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson stood alongside his justice minister and the national police chief on Thursday and said the state was not in control over the wave of violence hitting the country, and also addressed the death by shooting of an Islam-critical political activist on Wednesday night.

Speaking of the slaying of Salwan Momika, a self-described “liberal atheist” who was born into Iraq’s Assyrian Christian minority who fled to Europe from the Islamic State and who became a prominent public figure in Sweden after repeatedly burning copies of the Qur’an in protest, PM Kristersson said the security services were involved in the investigation. He said: “I can guarantee that the security services are deeply involved in this because there is obviously a risk that there is also a connection to a foreign power”.

Momika had been shot in a apartment in a Stockholm-area town on Wednesday night while he was livestreaming on TikTok. Five people have been arrested and police believe an assailant may have accessed Momika’s apartment from the roof of the building.

Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer responded to Kristersson’s assertion there was possibly an international element to the slaying, pointing to the riots Momika’s Qur’an-burning protests had triggered in Iraq, and the anger it generated in the Turkish government. Strömmer said: “We generally know that state actors are active in various ways to undermine our internal security. And this particular person has also made himself known in a context that has attracted a lot of attention internationally.”

Sweden is experiencing a years-long surge in violent crime carried out by predominantly migrant-heritage gangs which have dominated the national crime scene for over a decade. Bombings, generally carried out by drug gangs to intimidate and coerce, are only occasionally actually fatal but the sound of blasts and gunfire can now be heard nightly in Sweden’s more diverse cities. Just last night, Sweden’s notoriously ‘multicultural’ city was awoken by gunfire being directed at an apartment. There were no injuries.

Kristersson’s government had vowed to crack down on these issues when it took power, but at the same press conference the Prime Minister admitted that so far it had failed, and indeed the state did not have a grip on the problem.

In remarkable language, the Swedish leader stated: “It is obvious that we have no control over the wave of violence”.

He further stated that there had been, on average, one bombing in Sweden every day through the month of January. National Police Chief Petra Lundh said while standing besides Kristersson: “It is a wave of violence that once again shows the brutality and ruthlessness that exists in organised crime. Consideration for other people’s lives is something that has completely ceased to exist in these circles”.

The wave of violence is now so pronounced, it is reported by Aftonbladet that a Swedish bishop will give prayers against the bombings in Stockholm this Sunday. Bishop Andreas Holmberg said: “Prayer changes both reality as we know it and, not least, it changes us who pray. We open up to find new courage and new determination to try to change what needs to be changed.

“We pray that the spiral of threats, revenge and violence will be broken. That those who are about to commit crimes will come to their senses, and that in those they call enemies, they will instead see their fellow man”.

There may be some earthly solutions too, however. Speaking on Thursday PM Kristersson said he was bringing forward new police powers and laws to make tackling the gangs easier. In particular these new rules focus on the practice of gangs recruiting children to carry out the attacks, which Kristersson says is “essentially essential” to break.

“Social media platforms are developing into recruitment sites for young people – completely openly, before they transition to encrypted chats”, he said, while appealing to social media firms to be more proactive in deleting criminal content.

Among the new rules are allowing the police to wiretap children under the age of 15 if they are suspected of serious crimes, and possibly if they are suspected of organised crime. There will also be a new order for government bodies to share more information with police, for more security cameras to be deployed, and for police to have greater access to biometrics.