Sweden 2021
18/02/2021: Arrest in Sweden of two women who returned to Borås after spending several years in Syria. They are suspected of war crimes committed between 2014 and 2017. (Source)
25/02/2021: The Government ultimately aproved the deportation of the Quran teacher from Gothenburg who was arrested in September 2020 suspected of promoting violent interpretations of Islam. On October 29, 2020 the Migration Board made a decision on deportation but at the same time ordered that the deportation may not take place until further notice due to obstacles to enforcement. The Quran teacher appealed the decision and requested that the Swedish Migration Board's decision on deportation be overturned. The Migration Court of Appeal found in its decision on December 17, 2020 that the investigation into the case shows that there are grounds for deportation. (Source)
08/03/2021: The Lund District Court in Sweden sentenced a woman arrested in November 2020 upon her return from Syria to four years in prison. Converted to Islam, she had kidnapped her 2-year-old son to go with him to Syria in order, according to her, to experiment directly the life under the Caliphate rule. However, she was unable to justify the publication on her Facebook page of photos of automatic weapons that she held as well as the glorification of the lifestyle of Islamic State fighters in which she indulged. She was also accused of having made his child live in an environment marked by a Salafist-Jihadist culture of violence and literal application of Sharia law. (Source)
19/03/2021: Swedish authorities have published the Swedish Security Service Yearbook 2020 summarizing the threats looming over Sweden and the assessment of their potential nuisance. Although the threat from Islamism and Far-Right remains elevated, the report highlights a wider risk from hostile foreign States, namely Iran, Russia and China which may undermine Sweden institutions through undercover actions. (Source)
30/03/2021: Ahmed Abdulkarim Ahmed Ahmed, the 51-year-old imam who was held in custody since May 8, 2020, and previously detained on suspicion of terrorist recruitment, will ultimately be deported from Sweden. The government recently made the final deportation decision after Säpo applied for his deportation on grounds of national security. Ahmed's previous appeal was rejected on February 4, 2021. A number of people from the radical Islamist environment are expressing their support for Ahmed's family on a Facebook page. It is also implied that a Syrian returnee lived at Ahmed's home address. (Source)
06/04/2021: Swedish authorities have arrested a couple on suspicion of “conspiracy to commit a criminal terrorist act” against opponents to the Islamic Republic of Iran and American citizens living in Sweden. The two suspects named Fereshteh Sanai-Fari and Mehdi Ramezani entered Sweden as Afghani refugees back in 2015 with no valid IDs to support their claims and were eventually granted asylum. But it turned out during the investigations that they lied about their nationality and age and actually come from Iran as foreign agents. They managed to live undercover for years before catching the interest of authorities in January 2021 when they allegedly started to planning to carry out an attack. (Source)
06/09/2021: 3 Swedish women who joined IS and who spent several years in detention in Syrian territories controlled by the Kurdish authorities were deported to Sweden and arrested upon their arrival. (Source)
Although Swedish authorities cannot release confidential and specific information about people who settled in IS territory and returned, a media source said one of the women allegedly faces charges of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. (Source)
21/10/2021: Three women and eight children, three of whom are orphans, have arrived in Sweden after being expelled by the self-governing authorities in Northeastern Syria. The women were arrested by police at Arlanda and are suspected of war crimes. The children have been taken into care by social services. The women were thereafter released on October 23, as Swedish prosecutors deemed there was no longer any reason to detain them yet the investigations are still ongoing. (Source)
27/10/2021: The Swedish School Inspectorate revoked the license of Römosseskolan, which operated three Islamic schools in Gothenburg, after the Somali-born headmaster, Abdirizak Waberi was charged with fraudulent monetary activities. Römosseskolan has been granted over 400 tax million in school money over the past ten years yet 12 million were embezzled to two companies owned by Waberi who used the public funds he received to purchase sex clubs in Thailand. Moreover, he sent large sums to Somalia where he runs an Islamist party, the National Unity Party that in touch with the the Islamist Milli Göruz and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). As a prominent advocate of Islamic education, Waberi held high positions within MB-related organizations such as the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), which is the main Muslim Brotherhood organization in Europe. He also served as chairman of the Islamic Association in Sweden, the Muslim Political Forum and the Islamic Schools of Sweden, is also a member of the board of the Muslim Council of Sweden (Sveriges Muslimska Råd, SMR), which is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood through the FIOE. Despite the close ties of Waberi with the European Islamist milieu, authorities were not able to prove that his school is involved in extremism and violent radicalization but rather focused on his devious financial practices. (Source)
19/11/2021: Islamist activist Raad Al-Duhan who has been charged with aggravated money laundering on June 1, 2021, was sentenced by the Gävle District Court to a suspended sentence and a daily fine of 5,000 kronor. He received money through a sports club in Gävle that he manages himself and then bought foreign currency. The total amount involved is 465,000 kronor. Al-Duhan was arrested in June 2019 in an operation by Säpo, and is considered to pose a threat to national security, hence the decision in October 2019 to expel him from Sweden alongside his father Abo Raad, former controversial imam at the Gävle mosque. He is also notorious for making death threats against Anna Gullberg, then editor-in-chief of Gävle Dagblad. According to Säpo, he had contributed to the growth of violent extremist environments by being influential in activities where radicalization occurs. However, he remains in Sweden as he faces risks of persecution in his home country, Iraq. (Source)
03/12/2021: The Riksdag approved a clearer terrorism Law that will amend and supplement the criminal provisions for terrorist crimes. According to the new Law, it is therefore a criminal offense to perform a task that is directly linked to the criminal activities of a terrorist group and to publicly incite to commit terrorist crimes. (Source)