Police in Sweden arrest 5 in anti-terror raids against Islamist suspects

From Euronews

Police in Sweden have arrested five people suspected of conspiracy to commit terrorist offences.

Raids were carried out in the towns of Eskiltuna and Strängnäs, west of Stockholm; and Linköping, south of the capital, on Tuesday morning, with the Swedish Security Service Sapo saying they undertook an intelligence-driven investigation ahead of the arrests.

Authorities say those arrested have “international links to violent Islamist extremism.”

“The current case is one of several that the Swedish Security Service has been working on since the protests directed at Sweden in connection with the high-profile Koran burning in January, where international calls for attacks have been made,” said Susanna Trehörning, Deputy Head of Counterterrorism at Sapo (Swedish Security Service).

Part of the outrage was because Swedish authorities apparently allowed Paludan to burn the Quran while the police and media looked on.

However, the Scandinavian country has very strong free speech laws, and while senior politicians condemned the act, they stressed that they could not prevent it from happening due to freedom of expression laws. Sapo warned that the threat of attacks in Sweden had increased in the weeks after Paludan’s stunt.

The prosecutor has to decide by April 7th whether or not to request that the court remand the men in custody.