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‘Kidnapped’ man found dead in western Sweden

Swedish police have launched a murder investigation after a 27-year-old man who was reportedly kidnapped in southern Gothenburg was found dead.

Published: 31 August 2015 07:12 CEST

'Kidnapped' man found dead in western Sweden

Swedish police investigate the scene where the body was found. Photo: Adam Ihse/TT

A search was launched last week after witnesses said they had seen the man, Anton, being beaten by a group of three to four other men in a car park before being bundled into a red Passat.

The police released his picture with the family's permission, appealing for the help of the public in finding him. The red car was discovered south of Gothenburg on Friday night.

But at 7pm on Sunday a body was found near the Sisjön lake in Askim in western Sweden, not far from where the man was abducted. Later in the evening police confirmed that it was Anton.

“It is incredibly tragic. Our thoughts naturally go to his relatives,” head of the regional police's investigation unit Robert Karlsson told the TT news agency.

Forensic teams investigated the sealed-off area overnight.

A kidnapping probe was launched after Anton disappeared earlier in the week. Two men and a woman were still being held by police on Monday morning.

Officers previously said that they believed the kidnapping could be related to an unpaid debt, but did not comment on whether they thought the violence to be linked to recent gang crime in Gothenburg.

Sweden's second largest city has seen a number of high profile shootings in recent months, including an attack outside a restaurant which made global headlines.

Amir Rostami, a leading authority on Sweden's organized crime groups, who is based at Stockholm University, told The Local earlier this year that organized crime remains a persistent problem in Gothenburg, after first emerging in the 1990s.

“Today, the gang environment is…I don't want to exactly call it the Wild West, but something in that direction,” he said.

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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