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CRIME

Leader of Sweden’s ‘Los Suecos’ gang held in Malmö after extradition

Amir Mekky, the leader of Los Suecos - the Swedish gang blamed for two murders in Spain's Costa del Sol - has been placed in pre-trial detention in Malmö.

Leader of Sweden's 'Los Suecos' gang held in Malmö after extradition
Amir Mekky was one of the intended victims in the triple murder at the Galaxy Cyber café in Malmö in 2018. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Mekky, a Danish citizen with a Moroccan background who grew up mostly in Malmö, was extradited from Spain on Thursday, where he had been serving a sentence. 

He was placed in pre-trial detention on Friday on suspicion of committing series drugs crimes and drugs smuggling offences.

“He denies all accusations,” the 26-year-old’s lawyer Mikael Nilsson told Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT

The prosecutor, Lisa Åberg, requested that as well as being placed in pre-trial detention for the drugs offences for which he had been extradited, Mekky should also be held on suspicion of other weapons and drugs offences. 

But Malmö district court ruled that at this stage he could only be detained for the crimes for which he had been extradited from Spain. 

“The part [of the case] with these new criminal charges will only kick in once Spain has agreed that he can be prosecuted in Sweden for these crimes,” the judge, Niclas Söderberg, told the Sydsvenskan newspaper

Members of the Los Suecos gang were given significantly reduced sentences when they were tried in Spain in exchange for agreeing to plead guilty to two of the murders for which they were suspected. 

In Spain, Mekky admitted being an accessory to one of the murders, and he had been held in pre-trial custody so long that he was due to be released from prison soon, leading Sweden to revive its accusations against him, leading to his extradition. 

Mekky was the intended target of a triple murder which took place on the Galaxy Cyber café in 2018, but escaped alive, albeit injured.

This shooting was one of the early attacks in a tit-for-tat gang war between people close to Mekky and other criminal groups in Malmö which two years ago led to one of the city’s biggest gang trials, with the cracking of the Encrochat secure messaging service giving police unprecedented access to the planning of the attacks. 

Mekky was arrested in Dubai in 2020, after which he was extradited to Spain. 

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PROTESTS

Clashes mar rally against far right in north-west France

Riot police clashed with demonstrators in the north-western French city of Rennes on Thursday in the latest rally against the rise of the far-right ahead of a national election this month.

Clashes mar rally against far right in north-west France

The rally ended after dozens of young demonstrators threw bottles and other projectiles at police, who responded with tear gas.

The regional prefecture said seven arrests were made among about 80 people who took positions in front of the march through the city centre.

The rally was called by unions opposed to Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party (RN), which is tipped to make major gains in France’s looming legislative elections. The first round of voting is on June 30.

“We express our absolute opposition to reactionary, racist and anti-Semitic ideas and to those who carry them. There is historically a blood division between them and us,” Fabrice Le Restif, regional head of the FO union, one of the organisers of the rally, told AFP.

Political tensions have been heightened by the rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in a Paris suburb, for which two 13-year-old boys have been charged. The RN has been among political parties to condemn the assault.

Several hundred people protested against anti-Semitism and ‘rape culture’ in Paris in the latest reaction.

Dominique Sopo, president of anti-racist group SOS Racisme, said it was “an anti-Semitic crime that chills our blood”.

Hundreds had already protested on Wednesday in Paris and Lyon amid widespread outrage over the assault.

The girl told police three boys aged between 12 and 13 approached her in a park near her home in the Paris suburb of Courbevoie on Saturday, police sources said.

She was dragged into a shed where the suspects beat and raped her, “while uttering death threats and anti-Semitic remarks”, one police source told AFP.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country outside Israel and the United States.

At Thursday’s protest, Arie Alimi, a lawyer known for tackling police brutality and vice-president of the French Human Rights League, said voters had to prevent the far-right from seizing power and “installing a racist, anti-Semitic and sexist policy”.

But he also said he was sad to hear, “anti-Semitic remarks from a part of those who say they are on the left”.

President Emmanuel Macron called the elections after the far-right thrashed his centrist alliance in European Union polls. The far-right and left-wing groups have accused each other of being anti-Semitic.

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