Åklagarmyndigheten

The prosecutor has today indicted a woman with genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes in Raqqa, Syria, between 2014 and 2016. This indictment is the first in Sweden to try the Islamic State’s attack on the Yazidi minority. It is also the first indictment in Sweden for crimes against humanity. The prosecutor is available to the media by phone after today’s press conference.

The investigation shows that the Islamic State, IS, attacked the Yazidi religious minority in Iraq in August 2014. A large number of Yazidi people were killed and thousands of women and children were captured and taken to the area controlled by the IS in Syria. “Under IS control, the Yazidi minority were deprived of basic freedoms and rights. Women, children and men were regarded as property and subjected to enslavement, slave trading, sexual slavery, forced labour, deprivation of liberty and extrajudicial executions. The charged offences comprise part of the systematic abuse and offences these women and children were subjected too during their time in IS’ captivity. IS sought to destroy the Yazidi people on an industrial scale,” says Senior Prosecutor Reena Devgun leading the investigation. The 52-year-old woman is suspected of, in complicity with other perpetrators, between 2014 and 2016, buying or receiving civilian women and children belonging to the Yazidi minority in her residence in Raqqa in Syria. According to the indictment, she treated them as slaves. Furthermore, they were subjected to severe suffering, slavery or other inhumane treatment. In violation of international law they were deprived of liberty in the woman’s home and prevented from leaving. “Genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes can be committed by means of acts that overlap each other. However, they have different protection interests and it is therefore important that the court tries all the criminal classifications that can be relevant for the acts that I believe to have been committed in the residence,” says Reena Devgun. The woman is suspected of, on different occasions, being complicit in selling or handing over women and children to other persons within IS, knowing that they could be killed or subjected to severe suffering or serious sexual assault. “My opinion is that all the victims were subjected to such severe mental harm that it constitutes genocide. Forcefully taking the Yazidi children from their group and, as in this case, bringing them up to be Muslims, is also an act of genocide,” says Reena Devgun. The woman denies all allegations. She is currently serving a sentence for gross violations of international law and serious war crimes. What are genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes? Stockholm District Court Case Number: B3210-23. Contact Senior Prosecutor Reena Devgun is available today 19 September at approximately 3-3.30 PM for interviews on +46 10-562 50 15. The next time she is available to the media is after the judgment has been delivered. Press Service, +46 10 562 50 20

The prosecutor has decided to prosecute two men aged 38 and 49 with agitation against an ethnic or national group. The prosecution relates to four incidents in which the Qur’an was burned in various locations in Stockholm during the summer of 2023. The prosecutor is available to the media.

Both men are prosecuted for four offences of agitation against an ethnic or national group as a result of incidents outside the mosque in Södermalm on 28 July and 24 August 2023, and at Rinkebyplan and Benny Fredrikssons Torg on 25 and 26 August that same year. According to the indictment, evidence largely consists of video recordings of the events in question. “Both men are prosecuted for having on these four occasions made statements and treated the Qur’an in a manner intended to express contempt for Muslims because of their faith. In my opinion, the men’s statements and actions fall under the provisions on agitation against an ethnic or national group and it is important that this matter is tried in court,” says Senior Prosecutor Anna Hankkio, who is leading the investigation. The 49-year-old man is also prosecuted for benefit fraud. Stockholm District Court Case Number: B 10686-23. Contact Senior Prosecutor Anna Hankkio is available to the media by telephone today, 28 August between 11 am and 12 noon on +46 (0)10 562 73 53. Press Service, +46 10 562 50 20

The investigation where an 26-year-old man has been suspected of having subjected a woman to illegal threats has been closed. The incident occurred on May 9 in connection with the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö. The prosecutor is available to the media this afternoon.

The investigation has come to the conclusion that the man made a movement that hit the woman's film camera. The course of events was fast and was perceived differently by the witnesses of the incident. "Today I have closed the investigation because I cannot prove that the act was capable of causing serious fear or that the man had any such intention", says senior prosecutor Fredrik Jönsson. Case number in Malmö District Court: B 5921-24. Contact Senior prosecutor Fredrik Jönsson is available for the media by phone today Monday at 14– 15, +46 10 562 60 75. Press Service, +46 10 562 50 20