Sweden identifies Syrian suspected of murdering Quran-burning activist

PM said in January there was ‘obviously a risk’ that the killing of Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika was linked to foreign powers

A suspect has been identified in the January murder of an anti-Islam campaigner in Sweden, the public prosecutor there said on Monday, in a case that the Swedish prime minister has said might have links to foreign powers.

“We have a good picture of the sequence of events and after extensive technical investigations and review of obtained surveillance footage,” the prosecutor said in a statement. “At present, the suspect’s whereabouts are unknown.”

The statement did not name the suspect.

Court documents obtained by Reuters showed the suspect was a 24-year-old Syrian man who lived in Sweden at the time of the murder. It said Quran-burner Salwan Momika had been shot three times and the killing “had been preceded by careful planning.”

A detention hearing was set for Friday in a district court — a procedure under Swedish law prior to the issuance of an international wanted notice for a suspect.

Momika, an Iraqi refugee who frequently burned copies of the Quran at public rallies and stood accused of “offenses of agitation against an ethnic or national group,” was shot dead in a town near Stockholm hours before that case’s verdict. His fellow campaigner was convicted five days later.

Protester Salwan Momika appears outside the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm, July 20, 2023, where he burned a copy of the Quran and the Iraqi flag. (Oscar Olsson/TT via AP)

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said in January, referring to Momika’s killing, that “there is obviously a risk that there is a connection to a foreign power.”

The Quran burnings, seen by Muslims as a blasphemous act, drew widespread condemnation and complicated Sweden’s NATO accession process, which was eventually completed in 2024.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in 2023 that people who desecrate the Quran should face the “most severe punishment” and that Sweden had “gone into battle array for war on the Muslim world” by allegedly supporting those responsible.

Sweden in 2023 raised its terrorism alert to the second-highest level and warned of threats against Swedes at home and abroad after the Quran burnings. It was lowered back to three on a scale of five earlier this year.