Sweden convicts Quran desecrator days after co-protester’s murder

STOCKHOLM: A Stockholm court on Monday convicted a man of inciting ethnic hatred during four Holy Quran desecrations in 2023 that sparked outrage in Muslim countries, a verdict that reignited debate about the limits of freedom of expression.

The verdict came just days after the man’s co-defendant Salwan Momika, a 38-year-old Iraqi Christian, was shot dead late on Wednesday in an apartment southwest of Stockholm. The Stockholm district court was to have published its verdict against Momika and 50-year-old Salwan Najem the following day, but after Momika’s killing postponed it until Monday.

“There is a wide scope within the framework of freedom of expression to be critical of a religion in a factual and objective debate,” judge Goran Lundahl said in a statement. “At the same time, expressing one’s opinion about religion does not give one a free pass to do or say anything and everything without risking offending the group that holds that belief,” he said.

The court found Najem, 50, guilty of four counts of “agitation against a national or ethnic group”. He was handed a suspended sentence, which in Sweden means that if he were to commit another crime during a two-year probation period, the court would re-evaluate his sentence.

He was also ordered to pay a fine of 4,000 kronor ($358). Najem has appealed the verdict.