Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council on 29 June announced the start of legal proceedings to demand the extradition of an Iraqi refugee living in Sweden who desecrated the Quran on Wednesday outside the Stockholm Central Mosque.
According to the statement, the head of the Supreme Judicial Council, Faiq Zaidan, sanctioned “the legal proceedings in accordance with Article 14 of the Iraqi Penal Code, aimed at the individual responsible for the sacrilege of the Holy Quran.”
“[Zaidan] delegated the responsibility to the General Prosecution Office, working in tandem with the first Al-Karkh Investigation Court, to expedite the necessary legal modalities for the solicitation of this individual’s extradition and subsequent arraignment in adherence with the law,” the statement adds.
Salwan Momika, a 37-year-old Iraqi refugee living in Sweden for several years, desecrated the Quran outside Stockholm’s main Mosque on the same day hundreds of millions of Muslims celebrated Eid al-Adha.
He stomped on the holy book and placed bacon — the consumption of which is forbidden in Islam — between the pages, before lighting a few pages on fire and kicking the holy book around like a football while raising the Swedish flag.
His actions, and Stockholm’s protection of hate speech, sparked widespread condemnation across the Islamic world.
In Iraq, former political leader Muqtada al-Sadr called on his supporters to march on the Swedish embassy on Thursday for an “angry protest” against the desecration of holy book.
He also demanded the expulsion of the Swedish ambassador and and called on Baghdad to strip Momika of his nationality.
“These acts demonstrate a hateful and aggressive spirit that goes against the principles of freedom of expression … These irresponsible actions, in direct conflict with the values of respect for diversity and the beliefs of others, are unequivocally condemned,” the Iraqi said in a statement following the Quran burning.
While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Quran demonstrations, courts overruled those decisions, saying they infringed on “freedom of speech.”
During a news conference on Wednesday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson called the Quran burning “legal but not appropriate.”
