As IKEA Killings Trial Begins, Swedish Establishment Figures Cling To The ‘It Wasn’t Terrorism’ Line

The trial of 36-year-old Abraham Ukbagabir started in Vasteras, Sweden today, the Eritrean migrant charged with the murder of two Swedish citizens inside an IKEA store in August.

Now out of hospital, where he has been recovering since trying to kill himself after killing 55-year-old Carolin Herlin and her 28-year-old son Emil Herlin, Ukbagabir denies murder. Speaking in court the failed asylum seeker, who went directly to IKEA after being told he would be deported from Sweden, admitted only manslaughter while insisting he didn’t mean to kill anyone.

Defending his actions, Ukbagabir explained his motives were political, and that he wanted to bring peace by stabbing two innocent people in a furniture store. Explaining he felt the Swedish state had committed a “crime” against him by refusing his asylum application, he took action in revenge.

Despite the clear political motive for violence — the very core of what makes terrorism — Sweden is still desperately hanging on to the belief it was anything but.

Breitbart London has already reported on the unusual standards on political violence presently prevailing in Sweden, which makes a politically motivated stabbing at a school by a white man terrorism, but a politically motivated stabbing at a shop by a black man just plain murder.

One of Sweden’s most prominent columnists, the Anglo-Swedish Afton Bladet writer Oisín
Cantwell has put himself at the heart of this debate, first calling the school attack “the worst terrorist attack in Sweden since 1940”, before doubling-down today on the IKEA killer Ukbagabir.

In his Wednesday column, Mr. Cantwell explains that Abraham Ukbagabir is not a terrorist, reiterating the old defence of political killers, that “one man’s political assassin is another’s freedom fighter”. His writing implies that one day, the world will see the IKEA killer as a hero, not a murderer: “The ANC was according to the United States a terrorist organisation until 2008. A few years later, Nelson Mandela died as a grandfather to the world”.

The final hearing of evidence for the murder trial of Abraham Ukbagabir will be heard on Friday.

Follow Oliver Lane on Twitter: Follow @Oliver_Lane or e-mail to: olane@breitbart.com