A mother whose son was shot dead in his car outside the family home has warned a culture of fear is gripping Sweden as rival gangs run rife.
Tulun Tas found her son slumped in his car just years from their home in Norsborg, near Stockholm. With the engine still running, she realised he had been shot. He died in hospital shortly afterwards.
To his mother, Emirhan was a "funny” child who wanted to turn a love for Lego into a career in engineering. Not a day goes by that she does not miss his presence. “[My son] helped me from the day he was eight years old to the day he died," she said.
Ms Tas has broken her silence to speak out on her fears the 18 year old had been caught up in gang violence that has exploded across Sweden – and her determination to find his killer.
Her anger is directed at Rawa Majid, an internationally wanted gangster who she is calling on to account for Emirhan's death.
An investigation by The National has exposed the criminal empire of the Foxtrot gang, run from Iran by Majid, the man who calls himself the Kurdish Fox. He uses encrypted messaging apps to issue instructions to his teenage foot-soldiers who carry out shootings and explosive attacks to help dominate the drug market in Sweden's cities.
Majid was born in Iran to parents from Iraq's Kurdistan region, who had fled during Saddam Hussein’s war on the Kurds, before settling in Sweden.
mother of teenager shot dead
He has been engaged in a brutal struggle with one-time associate Ismail Abdo, a known criminal of Kurdish extraction who heads the rival Rumba network.
Majid left Sweden in 2018, travelling to Turkey before hiding out in Iran when international investigations threatened to catch up with his illegal activities. He has since been linked to attacks in Sweden on Israeli and Jewish targets carried out on behalf of Iran. His activities have drawn the attention of the US, which imposed sanctions on him in March this year.
He is wanted by Interpol on murder and attempted murder charges, as well as drug offences. Meanwhile, his rival Abdo has been arrested in Turkey on extensive drug-related charges.
Ms Tas said Foxtrot's influence is so great that crimes are going unsolved because witnesses are too scared to come forward to give evidence.
“Foxtrot has become so big for the Swedish people, they are afraid," she said. "They are afraid of what can happen because it seems that everyone has a connection to Foxtrot. But everyone is not like me, because I don't have fear.”
Investigation
Ms Tas, who has lived in Sweden for 38 years since moving from Turkey, has become frustrated that her son's murder remains unsolved.
Sitting in the living room of her neat two-storey home in a quiet cul-de-sac, surrounded by photos of Emirhan, she cried as she relived the moment in January 2022 she found him slumped in his car, bleeding to death.
At first she thought he was asleep, with his car engine running, after returning from the gym.
“I just yelled ‘Emirhan, stop the car.’ I walked to him and the only thing I saw was him lying there and I thought ‘he's sleeping’,” Ms Tas told The National.
“I opened the door and saw he was hurt. I [was] just yelling, 'please send the ambulance'. He was so warm. It was blood but I didn't know where he was hurt.
"Still today, I don't know where he was shot. That was the last time I saw him.”
Police came to her house around 90 minutes later to break the devastating news. “I thought they were going to take me to the hospital. He [a police officer] told me ‘sit in the car’ and I said ‘No, I don't want to sit. Are you going to take me to Emirhan?' But he said: ‘I am so sorry, but we lost your son.’”
Emirhan wanted to work as an aircraft engineer after having recently graduated from high school but he was also a young teenager who still did domestic chores for his mother. "He helped me with everything [and] cleaned the house,” she said.
Seeking answers
The police began investigating Emirhan’s death but say they were met with a wall of silence. Ten months after the fatal shooting, in October 2022 the inquiry was wound down.
Ms Tas, who also has a daughter, said after police had failed to find who killed her son, she began her own investigation.
She desperately wants to know if Emirhan was caught up in a conflict between the gangs controlling adjacent areas in the district of Flemingsberg, where the family used to live.
She said one neighbourhood is controlled by Foxtrot but her son had friends in the other area. “So I don't know if it was something there, some conflict,” she said.
She realises she might learn unpalatable truths about his life. “I am still looking for answer, and I will accept if I get an answer I don't like – 'he was a killer, he was a drug seller, he was with Foxtrot.' I’m ready to hear that. But so far, I haven’t heard anything.
“For me, the important thing is that he was my son and he was a person. He was a human and no one has the right to take life from you.”
Baghdad connection
She told The National she managed to obtain the mobile number of one of Majid’s henchmen.
Mustafa Al Jubouri, nicknamed "Benzema", grew up in Sweden to Iraqi parents. He had an extensive criminal record that included convictions for arson, fraud and drug offences.
He was a close associate of Majid until the pair fell out. The day after Ms Tas obtained his number, Al Jubouri was shot dead in Baghdad.
“I was going to ask Benzema if he knew something but he got killed,” she said. Asked if she would like to speak to Majid himself she said: “I’ve tried, but I’ve not found his number.”
