Salwan Momika, an Iraqi resident in Sweden who burned copies of the Qur’an several times in public in the Scandinavian country in mid -2023, was killed this Wednesday night in the province of Stockholm while broadcasting a live video on Tiktok. Police found Momika’s body with several bullet impacts in an apartment in the city of Södertälje, hours before the sentence against him was issued for “crimes of agitation against an ethnic or national group”, a criminal process in the that was judged with another person. Five men have been arrested this Thursday as suspects of the murder, as the Swedish authorities have reported.
The 38 -year -old Islamophobic had caused strong protests after the burning of the sacred book of Islam in front of the Stockholm central mosque, in June 2023, a public act attended by about 200 people and that coincided with the celebration of the EID To Adha, one of the most important festivities in the Islamic world. After these facts, considered in principle as a protected form of freedom of expression by the police and then repudiated by the Swedish government, a wave of burning of the Qur’an that caused protests in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran or Egypt and triggered Threats of jihadist groups. Sweden raised his terrorist alert to the second highest level and warned about threats against Swedes in the country and abroad. Although the Swedish immigration agency wanted to deport the accused of Iraq, to give false information in his residence application, he could not do it because he ran the risk of being tortured in his native country.
Local media reported that Momika – who identified himself in X as the “Qur’an burner in Sweden” – was broadcasting live on the Tiktok platform at the time he was shot. A video that circulates on social networks shows the police taking a phone and finishing a transmission that seemed to be from Momika’s Tiktok account. The other defendant in the same judicial case was giving interviews this Thursday and published a message in X, saying: “I am the next.”
The Swedish prime minister, the conservative Ulf Kristerson, said that “there could be a connection” between the murder and a “foreign power”, so the security services were “deeply involved” in the case.
For most Muslims to burn the Qur’an is a blasphemous act and a serious insult because they consider it the literal word of God. In January 2023, the burning of a copy of the text in front of the Turkey Embass Russian in Ukraine and was not formalized until last March.
After the action starring Momika in front of the Stockholm Mosque – then they continued burn before the Parliament or the Iraqi embassy in Sweden – the most violent reactions occurred in Baghdad, where the Swedish embassy was assaulted twice. In July, after the authorization of the Swedish authorities for another burning, the Iraqi government expelled the ambassador of the Nordic country in Baghdad. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then criticized what happened.