Quran-desecrating provocateur Momika shot dead in Sweden, five suspects arrested

An Iraqi refugee and anti-Islam campaigner was shot dead in Sweden hours before he was due to receive a court verdict following a trial over desecrating the Holy Quran, and five people were arrested over the shooting on Thursday.

The five were arrested in connection with the incident late on Wednesday and ordered detained by a prosecutor, Swedish police said on their website. They did not say if the shooter was among those detained.

Salwan Momika, 38, was shot in a house in the town of Sodertalje near Stockholm, public broadcaster SVT reported, citing unnamed police sources.

Momika had burned copies of the holy book in public demonstrations in 2023 against Islam.

“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.

A Stockholm court had been due to sentence Momika and another man today in a criminal trial over “offences of agitation against an ethnic or national group”, but said the announcement of the verdict had been postponed.

A police spokesperson confirmed a man was shot dead in Sodertalje, but gave no other details.

The other defendant in the same court case was giving interviews on Thursday and posted a message on X, saying: “I’m next.”

The Security Service said that police were leading the investigation but “we are following the development of events closely to see what impact this may have on Swedish security”, a spokesperson told Reuters.

Swedish media reported that Momika was streaming live on TikTok at the time he was shot.

A video seen by Reuters showed police picking up a phone and ending a livestream that appeared to be from Momika’s TikTok account.

Sweden in 2023 raised its terrorism alert to the second-highest level and warned of threats against Swedes at home and abroad after the acts of desecration, many of them by Momika, outraged Muslims and triggered threats from militants.

While the Swedish government condemned the incidents in 2023, it was initially regarded as a protected form of free speech.

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.

‘Don’t want to harm’ Sweden

Speaking to the Aftonbladet newspaper in April 2023, Momika said he never intended his acts to cause any trouble in Sweden, where he had lived since 2018.

“I don’t want to harm this country that received me and preserved my dignity,” he said.

In October 2023, the Swedish Migration Agency revoked his residency permit, citing false information in his original application, but he was granted a temporary one as it said there was an “impediment to enforcement” of deportation to Iraq.

The month before, Iraq had requested his extradition over one of the desecration acts.

In March 2024, Momika left Sweden to seek asylum in Norway, telling AFP that Sweden’s freedom of expression and protection of human rights was “a big lie”.

Norway deported him back to Sweden several weeks later.

Before arriving in Sweden, Momika’s social media accounts tell a story of an erratic political career in Iraq.

It included links to a Christian armed faction during the fight against the militant Islamic State group, the creation of an obscure Syriac political party, rivalries with influential Christian paramilitaries and a brief arrest.

He also joined the massive anti-corruption protests that gripped Iraq in late 2019, which were met with a crackdown that killed over 600 people nationwide.

In October 2023, a Swedish court convicted another man of inciting ethnic hatred with a 2020 Quran desecration, the first time the country’s court system had tried the charge for desecrating the holy book.

Prosecutors have previously said that under Swedish law, the burning of the Holy Quran can be seen as a critique of the book and the religion, and thus be protected under free speech.

However, depending on the context and statements made at the time, it can also be considered “agitation against an ethnic group”.