Published 2024-03-19 13.48
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full screen Najah al-Shammari. Photo: Hadi Mizban/AP
Since 2019, the former Iraqi defense minister has been suspected of grant crimes in Sweden.
During Monday he was arrested at Arlanda, reports TV4.
Najah al-Shammari has been suspected of several serious grant crimes in Sweden since 2019. He was Iraq’s defense minister from 2019 to 2020.
– He has been wanted, arrested in his absence, for almost a year and a half, says prosecutor Jens Nilsson to TV4.
He was arrested on Monday at Arlanda when he was caught by the border police because he was internationally wanted.
At the same time that Najah al-Shammari was living in Iraq and receiving a salary from the Iraqi state, he took out benefits in Sweden when he had registered as sick for several years, reports TV4. He registered as an emigrant when the criminal suspicions reached him.
The prosecutor tells the channel that Najah al-Shammari was served with criminal charges yesterday, but was released on the condition that he voluntarily come in for questioning on Tuesday.
Najah al-Shammari applied for a residence permit in 2009 and received Swedish citizenship in 2015.
It has previously been reported about the Iraqi Minister of Defense’s Swedish citizenship and that he has been accused of serious grant fraud. The accusations made Najah al-Shammari consider suing both Swedish and Arab media.
“We confirm that the minister has now appointed a Swedish lawyer with his aides to sue the Swedish and Arabic newspapers and websites that published this false information,” the Iraqi Ministry of Defense wrote in a statement on their Facebook page at the time.
In 2019, Aftonbladet spoke to several Swedish-Iraqis who believed that Najah al-Shammari, as Iraqi defense minister, was ultimately responsible for those who died in the government-critical protests that were going on in Iraq at the time.