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OFFBEAT

Gang hijacked Malmö grocery store and ran it as normal for a day

Four men have been remanded in custody after they forcefully evicted shop workers in a Malmö grocery store – only to keep running the store themselves before police arrived to put an end to it.

Gang hijacked Malmö grocery store and ran it as normal for a day
File photo of a shopping basket. Photo: Andreas Apell/TT

The gang had threatened the owners on several previous occasions to blackmail them for money, without success, and last week they returned to the store, reports the Sydsvenskan newspaper.

“They went into the store and took it over. That is, they threw out the people working there and continued to run the store and sell goods. They hijacked a grocery store!” local police station chief Mats Attin told Sydsvenskan after his officers were alerted by the owners.

“They got in touch and we went there in plain clothes and sure enough, these four people were inside. They had been restocking shelves, and we've caught it on video. It went on for at least 24 hours,” he said, incredulous. “I've been in Malmö for a long time, but never seen anything like this.”

The men are in their 20s. One of them, thought to be the leader, has a string of previous convictions, reports Sydsvenskan. He is from Malmö's Seved district, where he and a relative are understood to have been responsible for much of the area's criminality.

On Monday Malmö District Court remanded the men on suspicion of aggravated blackmail and aggravated unlawful dispossession.

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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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