Swedish PM says shooting of anti-Islam campaigner may be linked to foreign power

By Johan Ahlander

The Swedish prime minister said the shooting of an anti-Islam campaigner just hours before a trial verdict was due on Thursday over his burning the Koran might be linked to a foreign power, and police arrested five people over the killing.

Salwan Momika, 38, an Iraqi refugee, was shot in a house in Sodertalje town near Stockholm on Wednesday. A prosecutor ordered that the five people be detained, police said, without specifying if the gunman was among them.

Momika had burned and desecrated copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, either in public or in social media broadcasts in 2023.

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"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.

Vice Prime Minister Ebba Busch condemned the murder.

"It is a threat to our free democracy. It must be met with the full force of our society," she wrote on X.

A Stockholm court dismissed the case on Momika after his death. It said the verdict for another man in the same criminal trial over "offences of agitation against an ethnic or national group," in connection with Koran burnings would be postponed until Monday.

Sweden in 2023 raised its terrorism alert to the second-highest level and warned of threats against Swedes at home and abroad after the Koran 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 Koran 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 Koran burnings in 2023, it is widely regarded as a protected form of free speech.

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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in 2023 that people who desecrate the Koran should face the "most severe punishment" and Sweden had "gone into battle-array for war on the Muslim world" by supporting those responsible.

Sweden's migration agency in 2023 wanted to deport Momika for giving false information on his residency application, but couldn't as he risked torture and inhumane treatment in Iraq.