An Iraqi and Anti-Islam refugee activist was shot dead in Sweden hours before he should receive a judicial verdict after a trial on the desecration of the Sacred Koran, and five people were arrested for the shooting on Thursday.
The five were arrested in relation to the incident on Wednesday night and ordered arrested by a prosecutor, said the Swedish police on their website. They did not say if the shooter was among the detainees.
Salwan Momika, 38, was shot in a house in the city of Sodertalje near Stockholm, said the Public SVT SVT, citing unidentified police sources.
Momika had burned copies of the sacred book in public demonstrations in 2023 against Islam.
A Stockholm Court was due to the Momika judgment and another man on Thursday in a criminal trial for “crimes of agitation against an ethnic or national group”, but said that the announcement of the verdict had been postponed.
A police spokesman confirmed that a man was shot dead in sodertalje, but did not give other details.
The other defendant in the same judicial case was giving interviews on Thursday and published a message in X, saying: “I am the next.”
The security service said the police directed the investigation, but “we are following the development of close events to see what impact this can have on Swedish security,” a spokesman told Reuters.
The Swedish media reported that Momika was broadcasting live on Tiktok at the time they shot him.
A video seen by Reuters He showed the police collecting a phone and ending a live broadcast that seemed to be from Momika’s Tiktok account.
Sweden in 2023 raised his terrorism alert to the second highest level and warned of threats against the Swedes at home and abroad after the acts of desecration, many of them by Momika, outraged Muslims and caused threats of militants.
While the Swedish government condemned the incidents in 2023, initially it was considered a protected form of freedom of expression.
The Sweden Migration Agency in 2023 wanted to deport Momika for giving false information about her residence application, but could not, since she risked torture and inhuman treatment in Iraq.
