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Man with alleged Nazi links admits driving his car into a refugee demonstration in Malmö

The Local Sweden
The Local Sweden - [email protected]
Man with alleged Nazi links admits driving his car into a refugee demonstration in Malmö
The Migration Agency's office in Malmö. Photo: Ludvig Thunman/TT

A 22-year-old man with suspected neo-Nazi links has confessed to driving his Volvo into an Iraqi demonstration outside the Migration Agency in Malmö. Police are investigating it as hate crime.

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The man has admitted driving his car into a demonstration of around 20-30 Iraqi nationals protesting Sweden's new and stricter asylum rules outside the Migration Agency in Malmö on two occasions.

No one was injured but in the latest incident at around 10.30pm on Sunday he drove over a number of protest signs and crashed into a tree. The man then barricaded himself in the car to protect himself against the agitated protesters, who kept him there until police arrived and seized him.

The 22-year-old has also admitted driving at the demonstration on Saturday.

Police said they are investigating hate crime. The man, who Aftonbladet reports has a history of neo-Nazi activity, including participating in demonstrations and study groups organized by neo-Nazi group the Nordic Resistance Movement, has been released from custody during the ongoing police investigation.

“He said he's doing it to make a point. That he does not think they should be in the country,” Sandra Persson, from the police's special hate crime investigation unit, told the Swedish newspaper.

“We are prioritizing this. It is a clear hate crime with many people affected. And it happened at this site, outside the Migration Agency,” she said.

The 22-year-old is suspected of agitation against an ethnic group, illegally carrying a weapon, illegally carrying a knife and assault. One of the allegations includes using pepper spray on a number of protesters. It is against the law to carry pepper spray without a licence in Sweden. Two knives were also found in his car, as well as a Nazi symbol with a swastika, reported broadcaster SVT.

The incident has been falsely reported by some international extremist groups on social media as an Islamist attack, with Facebook group 'Never Again Canada' – an anti-Islam group which claims to fight “anti-Semitism, propaganda, terror and Jew hatred in Canada” and has almost 200,000 followers on Facebook – incorrectly describing the suspect as a “Muslim terrorist” on Monday.

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