A gunman who “executed” the uncle of Foxtrot gangster Rawa Majid has been jailed for life.
Karim Alaa Hussain, 34, calmly walked up to the victim, who was sitting in a chair in his travel agency in the Stockholm suburb of Husby, and shot him six times with a Glock pistol, killing him instantly.
The masked gunman fled the scene but was caught after police who happened to be in the area chased him down.
The murder is the latest in a series of shootings and bombings that have defined the gang warfare that has shattered Sweden’s reputation as a peaceful country. Its murder rate is now one of Europe’s highest.
The violence, much of it carried out by teenagers, has stemmed from the rise of the Foxtrot criminal empire of 39-year-old Majid, nicknamed the Kurdish Fox, and his feud with fellow gangster Ismail Abdo, who runs the rival Rumba network.
Hussain was jailed for life in November for the murder of Majid’s uncle, who cannot be named due to Swedish reporting guidelines, as well as the attempted murder of a police officer and a travel agency employee. His appeal against the sentence has now been rejected.
Throwing out the bid, the Svea Appeal Court said the 64-year-old victim had been “defenceless and completely lacked the possibility of escaping”.
“The murder had the character of an execution and was particularly ruthless. Karim Alaa Hussain has demonstrated complete indifference to the lives of other people.”
In its judgment, the court said the travel agency employee, who was working as an intern, had been making tea in the rear of the premises and came back just as Hussain was leaving.
The employee ran screaming into the street when he saw the victim had been shot, attracting the attention of police officers who happened to be on the scene on unrelated business.
One of the officers and the travel agency worker chased the masked Hussain, who fired wildly at them as he crossed a footbridge.
Eventually the officer, who had continued to chase the gunman on his own, cornered Hussain in a courtyard, by which time his mask had come off. The murder weapon was found nearby.
Hussain tried to claim the shooting had been carried out by someone else, in what was meant to be a robbery.
But he was identified by a number of witnesses and on CCTV carrying out surveillance of the travel agency. Bullet casings found in the travel agency were linked to the gun.
During police questioning Hussain said he was in Husby to buy a ticket to Iraq and that he “saw the devil inside the travel agency, then decided to shoot the devil”. But the court said “he did not commit the acts under the influence of a serious mental disorder”.
Investigators have yet to establish a motive for the crime. Several theories have been reported in Swedish media, including that the victim was killed in revenge for telling the police that Majid was to blame for the murder of his cousin.
Another theory is that the victim was connected to the murder of a Swedish gangster in Turkey a few days earlier.
Majid has been accused of carrying out attacks on Israeli targets on behalf of Iran, for which he has been placed under US sanctions.
He is the subject of an Interpol red notice, which states he is wanted on murder and attempted murder charges, as well as over drugs offences, going back to 2020. He is widely believed to be living in Iran, the country of his birth. His parents had fled there from Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s war on the Kurds, before the family settled in Sweden.
Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security is believed to have recruited the gangster in return for sheltering him.
