The Swedish security police (Säpo) have used a recently passed law to secretly arrest and deport a number of foreign extremists, according to a report.
Säpo has allegedly kept foreign extremists from both the radical Islamist scene and the far-right neo-Nazi scene in prison for months before putting them on flights back to their home countries under a veil of secrecy, Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reports.
The secret deportations fall under the scope of the Act on Special Alien Control (LSU) which allows the security police to expel any foreigner deemed to be a national security threat or if it is feared they may take part in terrorist activity.
A source close to the deportations spoke to Aftonbladet saying: “During the spring, several people who have been classified as extremists left the country completely under the radar.”
The paper examined three such expulsions done under the LSU including a 39-year-old citizen of both Italy and Ukraine, a neo-Nazi, who was suspected of war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity.
The case against him had been closed but he was placed into custody in February of last year and held for over a year before being secretly deported back to Ukraine.
The two other cases involved Islamic extremists including 53-year-old Mounir Dhari who had been convicted of plotting a terror attack on Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Dhari remains in detention since being arrested at the end of 2018.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that Säpo had used the LSU to arrest three radical imams including Imam Abo Raad who now faces expulsion after the Swedish Migration Board agreed to his deportation earlier this month.
Sweden has seen a rise in the number of Islamic extremists in recent years with Swedish researcher Peder Hyllengren of the Swedish Defence College claiming last year that the country had become an international base for jihadism and extremist networks.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.