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CRIME

Father remanded into custody over son’s death

The 53-year-old man suspected of murdering his 7-year-old son in Umeå in northern Sweden on Sunday has been remanded into custody.

Father remanded into custody over son's death

The man has admitted to cause the death of his child and according to details published by the Aftonbladet newspaper he has confessed to aggravated assault and manslaughter.

The 53-year-old is set to undergo a so-called paragraph 7 examination to assess his psychiatric health, according to the remand decision announced by Umeå district court on Tuesday.

The court ruled that the man should be remanded into custody until August 12th at which point the prosecutor can press charges, request an extension, or release the man.

The hearing was held behind closed doors.

Police were alerted to the fatal incident after a neighbour made a call at around 8am on Sunday morning.

On arriving at the apartment, police officers found the severely wounded boy. He was taken to the hospital, but later died of his injuries.

According to criminologist Mikael Rying, an average of three children younger than 15 are subjected to deadly violence every year.

This figure has been more than halved since the 1990s, when 10-12 cases were reported per year. However, the figure can also vary greatly from year to year.

“When children are this badly hurt, one of the parents is the perpetrator in 80-90 percent of the cases. The crime is committed in their apartment, and the motive is rarely directed at the child. Instead, mental illness or custody cases can lie behind the violence,” said Rying.

The most common group of children to fall victim are the very young, around one-years-old.

“But the sort of case found in Umeå is thankfully very uncommon. Weapons are rarely involved in cases with young children,” said Rying.

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POLITICS

Sweden Democrat justice committee chair steps down over hate crime suspicion

The Sweden Democrat head of parliament’s justice policy committee, Richard Jomshof, has stepped down pending an investigation into hate crimes.

Sweden Democrat justice committee chair steps down over hate crime suspicion

Jomshof told news site Kvartal’s podcast that he had been called to questioning on Tuesday next week, where he’s been told he is to be formally informed he is suspected of agitation against an ethnic or national group (hets mot folkggrupp), a hate crime.

Prosecutor Joakim Zander confirmed the news, but declined to comment further.

“I can confirm what Jomshof said. He is to be heard as suspected on reasonable grounds of agitation against an ethnic or national group,” he told the TT newswire.

“Suspected on reasonable grounds” (skäligen misstänkt) is Sweden’s lower degree of suspicion, compared to the stronger “probable cause” (på sannolika skäl misstänkt).

The investigation relates to posts by other accounts which Jomshof republished on the X platform on May 28th.

One depicts a Muslim refugee family who is welcomed in a house which symbolises Europe, only to set the house on fire and exclaim “Islam first”. The other shows a Pakistani refugee who shouts for help and is rescued by a boat which symbolises England. He then attacks the family who helped him with a bat labelled “rape jihad”, according to TT.

Jomshof has stepped down from his position as chair of the justice committee while he’s under investigation.

“I don’t want this to be about my chairmanship of the committee, I don’t want the parties we collaborate with to get these questions again about whether or not they have confidence in me, but I want this to be about the issue at hand,” he said.

“The issue is Islamism, if you may criticise it or not, and that’s about free speech.”

It’s not the first time Jomshof has come under fire for his comments on Islam.

Last year, he called the Prophet Mohammed a “warlord, mass murderer, slave trader and bandit” in another post on X, sparking calls from the opposition for his resignation.

The Social Democrats on Friday urged Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, whose Moderate-led government relies on the Sweden Democrats’ support, not to let Jomshof return to the post as chair of the justice committee.

“The prime minister is to be the prime minister for the people as a whole,” said Ardalan Shekarabi, the Social Democrat deputy chairman of the justice committee, adding that it was “sad” that Jomshof had ever been elected chairman in the first place.

“When his party supports a person with clear extremist opinions, on this post, there’s no doubt that the cohesion of our society is damaged and that the government parties don’t stand up against hate and agitation,” TT quoted Shekarabi as saying.

Liberal party secretary Jakob Olofsgård, whose party is a member of the government but is seen as the coalition party that’s the furthest from the Sweden Democrats, wrote in a comment to TT: “I can say that I think it is reasonable that Richard Jomshof chooses to quit as chairman of the justice committee pending this process.”

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