STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden’s police security service said on Tuesday it had detained five men on suspicion of conspiracy to commit terrorist crimes, in a case linked to a Koran-burning protest in Stockholm this year.
The five men were detained after coordinated raids in three cities on Tuesday morning. The suspects are believed to have international links to violent Islamist extremism, the Security Service said.
“The current case is one of several that the Security Police has worked on after the protests that were directed at Sweden in connection with the highly publicised burning of the Koran in January,” the Security Service said in a statement.
A Koran-burning in Stockholm by far-right activist Rasmus Paludan sparked outrage in many parts of the Muslim world and drew widespread condemnation. Turkey paused NATO negotiations with Sweden as a result of the burning.
(Reporting by Johan Ahlander, editing by Terje Solsvik)
