Five men suspected of involvement in the murder of Koran burner Salwan Momika were acquitted on Friday morning by the judge in Sweden. This is reported by the AFP news agency. The 38-year-old Momika, an Iraqi refugee, set fire to the Sacred Book for Muslims in the summer of 2023. On January 29, the day before he would stand with his supporter Salwan Najem for incitement and incitement to hatred, he was shot in the Swedish city of Södertälje.
The five suspects were arrested shortly after the murder, two days later they were released again to wait in freedom. An official indictment was not forthcoming, the men were officially acquitted on Friday.
According to prosecutor Rasmus Öman, that does not mean that the Swedish authorities are stopping the investigation. According to him, they have “a fairly clear idea” of what happened, but at the moment there are no official suspects in the case. The Swedish Public Prosecution Service therefore continues with the investigation.
Provocation
In the run-up to the murder of Momika, the tensions between Sweden and Middle Eastern countries rose. For example, in July 2023, Iraqi demonstrators stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, where they founded fire. Momika’s combustion acts and alleged incidents were seen as provocation by Islamic countries. In Sweden, the burning of a Quran falls under the constitutional freedom of expression, but the Swedish nevertheless continued to persecute, because Momika would have visible Muslims visibly with his actions.
The murder, which was committed when the Assyrian Christian Momika Livestreamed Tiktok, again put a magnifying glass on the diplomatic relationship between Sweden and Islamic countries. Sweden then decided to increase the terror threat level, for fear that the country would have become a “priority target”.
Shortly after the murder of Momika, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson stated that a “foreign power” might have been involved in the case, the Swedish wrote Public broadcaster SVT Shortly after the murder. What he meant by that is not clear.
After a few days of postponement, the court in Stockholm finally decided to continue the lawsuit against Najem. He was found guilty of inciting ethnic hatred during four Quran burns in 2023. Momika was not convicted.
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