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CRIME

Lego looters on the loose in Sweden

Thieves with an unusual speciality appears to be on the loose in Sweden, after a Lego store in one of the country's cities was broken into for two nights in a row.

Published: 23 May 2017 16:47 CEST
Lego looters on the loose in Sweden
File photo of a Lego store not related to the story. Photo: Francois Mori/AP

The Lego store in Örebro, central Sweden was broken into on Sunday night, then again on Monday night, with the thieves smashing windows using stones, breaking open boxes then stealing the popular Danish plastic bricks with an apparent level of expertise.

“They maybe had a list with them, the picked exactly what was the most expensive and unusual,” the shop's owner Peter Lilja told radio station P4 Örebro.

READ ALSO: Swedish church unveils Lego Jesus for Easter

Among the stolen items were Star Wars themed Lego which in some examples were worth thousands of kronor each. In total the Lego looters stole bricks worth 240,000 kronor ($27,644) over both nights.

Lego can fetch a surprisingly large amount of money in its most collectable varities. In 2014, a Swedish Lego lover sold his collection for 75,000 kronor ($11,500) in order to appease his wife, who had grown tired of the 300 kilo plus stash.

READ ALSO: Building my Swedish Lego dream brick by brick

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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.

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.”

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