Sweden 2022
27/01/2022: Two women who have been expelled by the Kurdish authorities in Northeastern Syria have arrived in Sweden with their children and were arrested by the police at Arlanda Airport. The children have been taken care of by social services yet a preliminary investigation into war crimes has now reportedly been opened against the two women. (Source)
04/03/2022: The Stocholm District Court sentenced to six years of prison a woman who settled in IS territory in 2013, taking along her five children and having one of them fight in the ranks of the Jihadists when he was 12 to 15 years old. He died in combat in 2017. The woman who returned to Sweden in November 2020 was identified as Lina Laina Ishaq, a Swedish convert. According to Magnus Ranstorp, research leader at the Center for Asymmetric Threat and Terrorism Studies, she is "the woman in this environment who is perhaps the most exalted. Of all the women in Sweden, she has the highest status". She lived in Raqqa, the previous capital of the so-called Caliphate and when the former collapsed, Ishaq fled from Raqqa and was captured by Syrian Kurdish troops. She managed to escape to Türkiye where she was arrested with her son and two other children she had given birth to in the meantime with an IS foreign fighter from Tunisia. She was later extradited to Sweden. In March 2021, Ishaq was previously convicted in Sweden for taking her son to IS-controlled Syria, a trial where she was never identified by name. This trial started on January 4, 2022 and again, she refuted all the accusations against her, but according to the Prosecutor, certain elements tend to establish that when the child was at home, he was educated to take part in hostilities and that he had been equipped with military weaponry to train for combat. At first, Ishaq wanted to appeal the verdict to the Svea Court of Appeal, yet she refrained from doing so on April 5, 2022. (Source)
12/03/2022: The two Iranian agents who were arrested in April 2021 over suspicions of terrorism on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran were deported back to Iran. No details regarding their operations in Sweden were revealed by Swedish authorities but they were reportedly wanted by the United States. However the request to extradite them had not arrived in time before their deportation back to Iran. (Source)
16/03/2022: Two women who traveled to Syria to join the terrorist group IS have been sent back to Sweden along with their two children. They were received by police at Arlanda, and the children are being cared for by social services. (Source)
30/03/2022: Swedish authorities have published the Swedish Security Service Yearbook 2021. This updated version stick to the assessments made by te previous report yet concludes that the war in Ukraine may worsen the security landscape in Sweden notably by giving an impetus to the undercover actions carried out by foreign powers and actors hostile to Sweden. (Source)
01/04/2022: The Solna District Court detained Camilla Olofsson along with a 28-year-old man named Abdirahman Shukri Mohamed, on suspicion of human trafficking, forced marriage and aiding and abetting the rape of children. Olofsson is a Swedish convert previously married to Al-Qaeda in Iraq's second-in-command, Moamed Moumou, who was killed in action in 2008. Upon her return to Sweden from Syria, Olfsson worked as a personal assistant and was studying to become a registered nurse before her arrest. She claimed during the investigation that she had no knowledge of her husband's activities yet he was suspected of terrorist acts since at least the year 2000, and then the couple lived together. According to Säpo information, they stayed in Afghanistan together that year and were linked to Al-Qaeda. Olfsson thereafter moved to Iraq and Syria between 2013 and 2015 and indulged in various crimes in the name of IS. Her two daughters where maried off to older men in Syria as minors. In 2013, both Olofsson and the man participated in an arrangement that involved the man marrying the woman's daughter. They were charged with human trafficking, forced marriage and aiding and abetting aggravated rape on October 11, 2022. (Source)
03/04/2022: The police at Kastrup in Copenhagen, has arrested Camilla Olfsson and Mohamed Moumou's eldest daughter as she was about to take a 4-year-old child to Qatar to relatives in the local extremist environment. She had arranged to meet at the airport with a family member from Qatar who had plans to finance the trip. Since she was deemed by the Administrative Court to be deeply endoctrinated by her family upbringing, Swedish authorities decided that she would be taken into care under the Care of Young Persons Act. (Source)
09/05/2022: Abdirizak Waberi, the Somali-born headmaster who ran the Römosseskolan association, which operated three Islamic schools in Gothenburg that were shut down by Swedish authorities in October 2021, was sentenced by the district court to four years and six months in prison for gross embezzlement. Despite his deep involvement in Islamist activities in Sweden and Somalia, radicalization or extremism were not included among the accounting crimes held against him. He appealed the verdict. (Source)
11/05/2022: Two women who traveled to Syria to join the terrorist group IS and three children were expelled by the Kurdish self-government authorities in Northeastern Syria and were arrested upon their return to Sweden. The children have been taken into the care of child welfare services. (Source)
23/05/2022: Türkiye has published a list of requirements for approving a Swedish NATO membership, including that Sweden stops "political support for terrorism". The Turkish government writes that Swedish authorities receive members of terrorist organizations, including the pro-Kurdish party PYD, at ministerial level which is considered as a serious bone of contention by Türkiye regarding any effective integration of Sweden within NATO's ranks. (Source)
31/05/2022: Swedish Parliament adopted a new anti-terror Law initially drafted in December 2021 and submitted in March 2022 replacing three earlier laws relating to terrorism and increasing prison sentences for terrorism offenses. Crimes such as funding terrorism, calling to disrupt public order, recruiting staff for a terrorist organization and providing terrorist training can be sentenced to one year to six years in prison. Attempts to harm a country with the aim of terrorism and to commit an intentional crime can be considered as a terrorist crime as well. The new anti-terrorism Law will enter into force as of July 1, 2022. (Source)
10/10/2022: The Svea Court of Appeal in Sweden sentenced to four months in prison the young Austrian who was arrested by the authorities in 2019 for possession of Islamic State propaganda material and guides for making explosives. He was acquitted on July 9, 2020 but the Prosecutor decided to appeal the judgment. It was therefore established that the accused was indeed training to carry out terrorist attacks and that he had made several videos in which he described making bombs as the simplest way to kill someone. (Source)
24/10/2022: Säpo demanded that two Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated schools, Framstegsskolan in Stockholm and Imanskolan in Uppsala be shut down as pupils were at risk of being radicalized by the MB ideology. Those schools according to Säpo reports did not ensure gender equality properly and Swedish society was commonly spited as respect for human rights and basic democratic values was dismissed in favor of a mindset bent on advocating societal separatism. Consequently, out of the eleven Muslim schools in Sweden, five are still operational due to concerns over radicalization and fraudulent management. In reaction, Islamists expressed grief over Swedish policy towards Muslim education system that they deem to be "anti-Islamic". (Source)
07/11/2022: Iraqi convicted terrorist imam Ali Berzengi, was ultimately deported from Sweden. He was placed in detention on February 15, 2022 after he was convicted violating the reporting obligation to the police station he was supposed to comply with five days a week. Berzengi was sentenced to five years of prison in 2005 life banishment for preparing a terrorist crime and he received money and sent large sums to the Iraqi terrorist organization Ansar al-Islam. However he was released on parole from his prison sentence in 2007 and was subsequently placed in detention for a period of time. Deportation was delayed for years as Berzengi claimed that he would face death threats upon his return to Iraq. (Source)
16/11/2022: In compliance with Türkiye's demands to approve Stockholm's NATO membership bid, Sweden gave an impetus to the national counterterrorism legislation and Swedish parliament ultimately passed a constitutional amendment to expand the scope of limitations on the right to freedom of association for groups engaged in terrorism. Attempts to forbid and punish membership to a terrorist organization were forestalled back in January 2020 on the basis that such measures would undermine freedom of association. The freedom of association provision now reads: “Freedom of association can be limited only for associations that are devoted to or support terrorism or whose activities are of a military or similar nature or involve persecuting a group of people on the basis of ethnic heritage, skin color, or other similar condition". The amendment to the Constitution will enter into force on January 1, 2023. (Source)
13/12/2022: The Court of Appeal confirms the district court's judgment against Abdirizak Waberi, Römossesskolan's former headmaster, who was sentenced back in May 2022 to 4.5 years in prison for having embezzled over 12 million kroner that were meant for his association. The sentence also includes a ban on business and the unability to leave the country. (Source)