SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

ANTI-SEMITISM

Swedish neo-Nazis ‘chatted about killing Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer’

Members of the Nordic Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi group, talked about killing the justice minister of Sweden, an investigation by the Aftonbladet newspaper has revealed.

Swedish neo-Nazis 'chatted about killing Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer'
Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer, of the conservative Moderates. Photo: Lars Schröder/TT

“Spontaneously, I feel like I could imagine killing JEW lackey Gunnar Strömmer and serve life,” wrote one member of the Nordic Resistance Movement (Nordiska motståndsrörelsen in Swedish, or NMR) according to the internal chat logs acquired by Aftonbladet.

“My feelings tell me that it would be a righteous act,” added the man, who holds a series of previous hate crime and molestation convictions.

“My thoughts exactly,” replied another.

The discussion, according to Aftonbladet, played out after a person in the group shared an interview with Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer in which he speaks about limiting freedom of association for Nazi groups and other radical groups that commit crimes.

Theirs are not the only messages of that kind posted in the chat.

Gross anti-Semitism, tributes to Adolf Hitler and threats towards homosexual people, among others, can be found in the thousands of messages read by Aftonbladet.

Several centre-left opposition politicians, such as Social Democrats Magdalena Andersson, Annika Strandhäll and Anders Ygeman, are discussed in threatening terms, as well as the Green Party’s MEP and former leader Alice Bah Kuhnke.

“Can’t wait until she’s lying in the bog,” one person wrote about Kuhnke, using an idiom that corresponds to “six feet under”.

Robin Andersson Malmros, deputy director of Segerstedtinstitutet – a research centre at Gothenburg University which researches violent extremism – and lecturer in police work at the University of Borås, told Aftonbladet the chat logs were unique.

“This is completely unedited and this is their real way of talking. It differs from how they express themselves in edited material which is used to reach a wider target group,” he said.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
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.

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