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CRIME

Restaurant bomb linked to gang vendetta

A violent bomb explosion at a restaurant in Lund, southern Sweden, early on Thursday is thought to have been gang-related.

Published: 21 August 2008 13:59 CEST
Restaurant bomb linked to gang vendetta

The bomb exploded in the Och Bar restaurant near Mårtenstorget square in the early hours of Thursday morning, causing widespread damage.

The eatery’s facade was damaged and several panes of glass were shattered in the blast. The restaurant was closed at the time and there have been no reports of any injuries.

Police believe the bomb was an act of vengeance for the attempted murder in June of a 20-year-old gangster in Malmö, south Sweden.

According to newspaper Sydsvenskan, the bomb could be one in a series of revenge attacks. It has also been connected to a shooting in Malmö on Wednesday, when a 22-year-old man was shot several times in a moped drive-by.

The victim of that attack managed to escape uninjured although his car was damaged by gunfire.

Police commissioner Tony Pallon told Sydsvenskan that there was a definite correlation between the bomb explosion and the shooting incident.

The shooting incident is allegedly part of an ongoing feud between two rival criminal gangs, which culminated in the attempted murder of a 20-year-old man in June.

According to Sydsvenskan, both brothers had had a dispute with the 20-year-old.

However, the brothers deny having anything to do with his murder. Speaking to Sydsvenskan, one of the brothers said he had heard of the bomb in the restaurant, but had not been to see the scene.

The other brother lives upstairs from the restaurant and was at home when the bomb went off at 3am on Thursday morning. He was not injured and was one of the first to be questioned by police.

So far police have no information on how strong the explosives were, nor what type of explosive was used.

CRIME

Sweden charges Islamic State woman in landmark trial

Swedish prosecutors said they have brought genocide charges against a woman in the country's first court case over crimes committed by the Islamic State group against the Yazidi minority.

Published: 20 September 2024 07:15 CEST
Sweden charges Islamic State woman in landmark trial

A prosecutor told AFP the 52-year-old woman was accused of keeping Yazidi women and children as slaves at her home in Syria between 2014 and 2016.

She was charged with “genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes” on the grounds that her actions formed part of a broader campaign by the group (IS or Isis) against the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority.

The woman, who is a Swedish citizen, is in jail having already been sentenced by a Swedish court to six years in prison in 2022 for allowing her 12-year-old son to be recruited as a child soldier for Isis.

Senior prosecutor Reena Devgun told AFP that while investigating that case, authorities had received witness reports “that told us that she had kept slaves in Raqqa,” the former stronghold of the Islamic State group in northern Syria, prompting further investigations.

“If you take in Yazidis into your household when you are an Isis member or the wife of an Isis member and treat them this way, I argue that you are participating” in the broader campaign against them, Devgun said.

Devgun said the woman had kept nine people, three women and six children, in her home “as slaves”.

The women and children – who were kept in the house for between 20 days and seven months – were among other things made to perform household tasks.

Devgun said they had also been photographed, which the prosecutor argued “was done with the intention that they would be sold off”.

Evidence had mainly been gathered through witness accounts, from the victims and others that had visited the home at the time.

The crimes, which the woman denies, can carry a life sentence in Sweden.

Stockholm’s District Court said in a statement that the trial was scheduled to start on October 7th and was expected to last two months.

Around 300 Swedes or Swedish residents, a quarter of them women, joined IS in Syria and Iraq, mostly in 2013 and 2014, according to Sweden’s intelligence service Säpo.

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