"Foreign Power" Accused.. Sweden Reveals Details About Killing of Iraqi "Quran Burner"

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the killing of anti-Islam Iraqi refugee Silwan Momika - two years after he burned and repeatedly desecrated the Quran - could have been carried out by a foreign power.

"The security services are very concerned, because it is clear that there is a risk that what happened is linked to a foreign power," Kristersson said at a press conference, without naming a specific party.

The Swedish Prime Minister said that the police arrested five suspects.

Meanwhile, the Swedish Security Service told Reuters it was assessing the potential impact of Momika's killing "on Swedish security".

Swedish police announced on Thursday that the 38-year-old Iraqi Christian refugee was shot dead inside his apartment in the town of Södertälje, near the capital Stockholm, last night.

His killing came hours before a session scheduled for Thursday to pronounce the verdict in his trial in the 2023 Quran burning case.

Case closed

The court dropped the case against Momika on Thursday over his killing, and said the verdict on another person in a criminal trial on charges of "incitement against an ethnic or national group" over the burning of the Qurans had been postponed until next Monday.

For its part, the police said that the public prosecutor ordered the detention of the five suspects, without specifying their connection to Momika's murder.

Swedish television reported, citing police sources, that Sloan Momika was shot in a house in the town of Södertälje, about 35 kilometres south of Stockholm.

live feed

According to Swedish media, the Iraqi refugee was appearing in a live broadcast on the TikTok app when he was shot.

A video clip seen by Reuters showed police officers picking up a phone and ending a live broadcast that appeared to be from Momika's account on the app.

The desecration and burning of the Qur’an repeatedly in Sweden during the summer of 2023 sparked angry reactions in the Islamic world.

In February 2024, the Swedish Migration Court approved the decision to deport the “desecrator of the Qur’an” from the country, and in March of the same year, Momika said that he had left Sweden for Norway to seek asylum there.

Who is Silwan Momika?

Salwan is an Iraqi Christian who sought asylum in Sweden in 2018. He was born in the Hamdaniya district of Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq, which is one of the areas with a Syriac Christian majority. After completing his primary education, he moved with his family to the city of Baghdad, before they all moved to the city of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.

After the Islamic State organization invaded Nineveh Governorate and other Iraqi cities in 2014, Salwan joined an armed faction of “Christian formation” known as Babylon, before splitting from it and forming the “Brigades of the Spirit of God, Jesus, Son of Mary,” which is part of one of the factions of the Popular Mobilization Forces.

Silwan says about himself that he is “an Iraqi liberal, secular, atheist, and an opponent of the Iraqi government and regime. He founded and headed the Syriac Union Party between 2014 and 2018.”

Momika sparked a wave of protests and criticism after burning copies of the Qur’an on more than one occasion during the summer of 2023.

One of the most prominent of these was his burning of a copy of the Qur’an outside the Stockholm Grand Mosque on the first day of Eid al-Adha, at the end of June 2023, after the Swedish police granted him a permit to organize the “protest” following an official decision, which sparked angry reactions, both at the popular and official levels, in Arab and Islamic countries.

At the time, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, the United States, and Russia condemned the arson incident, and Morocco summoned the Swedish Chargé d'Affaires in Rabat. A wave of anger erupted on social media as a result, including calls to boycott Swedish products.

In July 2023, crowds set fire to the Swedish embassy in Baghdad. In early September 2023, Momika set fire to a copy of the Qur’an in the Swedish city of Malmö, sparking riots in Sweden that police described as “violent,” and included “a number of vehicles being set on fire.”

Official Swedish positions on the burning incidents varied, as the Swedish police granted a permit to the protests in which Mumika burned copies of the Qur’an, “in line with freedom of expression laws.”

In July 2023, the Swedish government condemned Mumika’s burning of a copy of the Qur’an in front of Stockholm’s main mosque, calling it an “anti-Islamic act.” The Swedish government later pledged to consider legal means to quash protests involving the burning of texts under certain circumstances.

Source: Agencies