Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Hundreds mourn teen murdered in Malmö

Hundreds of the friends, family and neighbours of the teenage boy shot dead in Malmö gathered on Friday evening for a sombre but defiant demonstration in his memory, as police pledged to bring an end to the murder wave sweeping the city.

Published: 14 January 2017 14:03 CET
Hundreds mourn teen murdered in Malmö
Mourners lit candles around the bus stop. Photo: Andreas Hillergren/TT
Mourners lit candles and laid flowers at the bus stop in Malmö’s Rosengård district where Ahmed Obaid, 16, was shot dead by as-yet unknown gunmen on Thursday evening. 
 
”We are gathered here to say: ‘That’s it now. It’s enough,” Redha Habib, a small businesswoman who represents the Iraqi community, told the crowd.
 
“Why is it always the best ones who are taken. Why?” Obaid’s cousin Ruaa Abbas told the local Sydsvenskan newspaper. “He wanted to be a doctor. He was going to have a maths test today and he had just bought a new calculator. I never thought that the violence would come so close to me. I still can’t grasp it.” 
 
Malmö police on Saturday branded the shooting “a special event” allowing them to release more resources to track down the killers. But by Saturday morning they admitted they had yet to make a breakthrough. 
 
“We want to make contact with everyone who knows something, has seen something, or has anything whatsoever that can help us,” police press spokesman Lars Förstell told the Sydsvenskan newspaper. 
 
Police do not believe that the boy's death is linked to Malmö's gangs, as the boy had no criminal record and was not previously known to the police.
 
Swedish Home Affairs minister Anders Ygeman on Friday pledged to do everything in his power to end the growing violence in the city, with 12 murders taking place in Malmö in 2016, a murder rate around three times that of London according to a report by the Reuters news agency.
 
“The presence of police must improve in socially exposed areas and the people guilty of these crimes must be put behind bars,” Ygeman told the TT newswire. “We are ready to offer the necessary resources and legislation to change the situation.”
 
Ygeman is travelling to Malmo next week to meet with city officials.
 
Rosengård locals told Sydsvenksan at the memorial that they wanted more police on the ground in the area as well as tougher penalties for criminals. 
 
“I really sympathise with the police,” Zeinab Bazzi told the paper. “They take a huge amount of shit, and I understand that they can’t watch our building 24 hours a day. They also must feel betrayed when criminals are let out of prison after only a month or two.” 
 
The local Sydsvenskan newspaper on Friday launched a campaign Framåt Malmö or Forward Malmö to push to improve conditions in the city. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
For members

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.

Published: 13 September 2024 13:33 CEST
Updated: 13 September 2024 14:38 CEST
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.”

SHOW COMMENTS