Najah al-Shammari was unknown in Sweden until he was suddenly appointed Minister of Defense in the Iraqi government in 2019. There were then suspicions in Iraq that the father of several children had dual citizenship in Sweden and Iraq, which he denied.
It later emerged that al-Shammari – whose name in Sweden is Najah Al-adeli and who came to the country in 2009 – became a Swedish citizen in 2015.
The family paid out both housing allowance and child support despite the fact that he lived in Iraq where al-Shammari drew a full salary from the Iraqi state, as Expressen previously reported.
– The suspicions are from 2012. Those parts are time-barred, but this has stretched over several years and the largest part is not time-barred, says prosecutor Jens Nilsson to TV4.
Arrested at Arlanda
When the suspicions became known, he wrote himself out of Sweden.
He was then registered as a re-immigrant in the spring of 2023 – but despite the ongoing investigation, the Stockholm police did not manage to find him, reports TV4 Nyheterna.
On Monday, he landed at Arlanda, where he was caught by the border police because he had been wanted as an arrestee in his absence for 1.5 years, according to the channel.
He will be questioned this week.
Residence permit 2011
Najah al-Shammari came to Sweden in 2009 and applied for a residence permit in September of the same year. He received a permanent residence permit in 2011 and the following year his wife and the couple’s six children also came to Sweden. In 2015, after four years in the country, Najah al-Shammari became a Swedish citizen.
He had previously stated that he had been a general in the Iraqi army.