STOCKHOLM, January 30. /TASS/. Salwan Momika, 38, an organizer of Quran-burning rallies, was found late Wednesday night in Sodertalje, south of Stockholm, with gunshot wounds, SVT TV reported.
On Thursday, the Stockholm District Court was set to deliver a verdict on charges of incitement to hatred based on nationality. However, the verdict was postponed due to the death of one of the defendants.
The police have not yet commented on the incident or the identity of the victim. According to SVT, the intelligence service is involved in investigating the case, and several people have already been detained. The police have sealed off the area around the crime scene and are conducting searches at the apartment building.
Salwan Momika arrived in Sweden from Iraq in 2018 and was granted a three-year residence permit in 2021. In the summer of 2024, the permit was extended for one year. The Swedish prosecutor's office charged Momika with incitement to hatred based on nationality.
He faced charges for four incidents involving the burning of the Koran at various locations in Stockholm during the summer of 2023.
Video recordings from the sites where the rallies took place serve as evidence of the criminal offenses. The Muslim holy book was first burned in a square in central Stockholm on June 28, 2023, coinciding with Eid al-Adha, one of the major religious holidays observed by Muslims worldwide.
Following a series of similar rallies, several terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State and al-Qaeda (banned in Russia), have designated the kingdom as a "priority target." As a result, the terrorist threat level has been raised to four out of five.