Swedish far-left activist Alex Luo Öhman has been charged with making death threats on social media against a freelance journalist working for right-wing-populist Swedish alternative media outlet Samhällsnytt.
Mr. Öhman made the threats in a Twitter thread on March 24th, initially singling out freelance journalist Mattias Albinsson who worked for Samhällsnytt at the time, the publication reports.
In a later tweet, Öhman wrote the alternative media outlet “spreads fake news and portrays individuals as some kind of societal enemies. The entire editorial staff should get a well-deserved execution by shooting, but that’s another matter.”
In another tweet, he added: “Execution by shooting. They all have to have their own execution by shooting. They are orphans and an execution by shooting is the only thing they should have.”
Samhällsnytt reports Mr. Albinsson later complained to Swedish police about the threats and at the end of May prosecutor Erik Nilsson announced he would be bringing charges against Mr. Öhman.
Axel Luo Öhman is said to have been in close cooperation with the far left “anti-hate” group “Not Racist, But …” a group which often criticises the populist Sweden Democrats (SD) party.
The founder of “Not Racist, But…” Henrik Johansson has written several articles for far-left Expo magazine, the publication of the Expo Foundation which was recently included in a Swedish military report on far-left violence and which has received funding from left-wing Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundations.
“I hope more established media is now considering whether to cooperate with such left-wing groups,” Albinsson said and added that such threats were “never acceptable”.
Prosecutor Nilsson has claimed that he felt confident there would be a conviction in the case saying: “I estimate there is reason to believe that there will be a conviction in this case based on the material we have.”
The trial against the far-left activist is scheduled for September 4th at Södertörn’s district court in Flemingsberg.
The case is not the first time far-left activists have threatened journalists. Last August, members of the Canadian branch of the Antifa movement threatened violence against mainstream media journalists covering protests which they did not approve of.