I was preparing to go to bed when requested to make a write-up of what we know so far about the stabbings at IKEA Västerås in Sweden, in light of the story making the rounds in the anti-Islamic and right-wing blogospheres.

And frankly, it pisses me off, as it is using information which has already been dismissed by SD-aligned (Sweden Democrat (far right)) media in Sweden as the uninformed blabbings of a certain Miriam Tapper, as well as information which will most likely prove factually false when things have become clearer for law enforcement in Sweden. You have to understand that Swedish police are tight-lipped about high-profile cases such as this, especially when it has the potential to cause unrest. And they may be so until charges are filed in district court.

The beheading angle is most likely untrue. It was started on Facebook by above-mentioned Tapper, who claimed to have been in contact with a witness to the event, who had told her both victims had been decapitated. Her “witness” curiously stepped forward shortly after a photograph taken at the scene showing what appears to be the female victim, laying on the ground. It is the same photo which featured on Jim Hoft’s blog entry about IKEA. Tapper’s “witness statement” also bears striking resemblance to the thread so far about the crime on a swedish forum often frequented by extreme right-wingers and neonazis.

Information that has since come out that point contradict Tapper’s story, which was based on speculation with questionable motives in the above-mentioned forum, so much so that web media aligned with the far right have distanced themselves from Tapper and said her information was wrong (among other things).

As to the photo, it is of poor quality, with reflections and obscuring objects, and we do not what level of rescusitation attempts, if any have been performed on the victims.

The muslim angle is also most likely untrue. Having seen a scanned copy of the arraignment document from district court, the name seems a Christian one to me, and a room-mate of the suspects has told reporters of the Expressen newspaper that both the suspects are Eritrean Christian.

Much has been made of a video clip of the arrest of the second suspect, where people claim to have heard “Allahu Akbar”, but there are as many people who claim it to be a swedish police officer shouting “Alla backar” [EN: Everyone back [away]]. Similar sounding words on a piece of video with poor quality to begin with.

According to witnesses to the arrest, it was calm, and they only heard the suspect vail, either due to shock or due to being handled very heavy-handedly by police officers. So we don’t have a corroboration to the claims of “Allahu Akbar” being shouted from an actual witness to the arrest.

It has later emerged that the elder suspect, who is currently in the ICU because of what appears to be a self-inflicted wound to the stomach, had got a denial on his application for asylum due to the Dublin Regulation (that is, you can’t get asylum in two countries, the first one is the one that counts), and was to be deported back to Italy.

This strengthens the possibility that the elder suspect had some form of mental breakdown at IKEA and lashed out at people there. There is also the possibility that the suspect intended to commit suicide, and that Carola and Emil Herlin (aged 55 and 28, respectively) tried to intervene and got stabbed fatally in the process. The latter hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that Carola was a nurse, and that people from the northern part of the country are slightly more likely to intervene than city-dwellers
(not that it would matter, Swedes are likely to intervene if someone is trying to off themselves).

The younger suspect might have gone into a state of shock, might have been trying to stop what was happening, or might simply have been at the wrong place at the wrong time and was caught in the search for the perpetrator (at first, it was believed the elder suspect was yet another victim of the stabbing, which then proved to be wrong). I anticipate that one of the suspects will be released in the coming days as the events become clearer for law enforcement.

As to my sources to this, it is the coverage of Aftonbladet, Expressen and TheLocal.se, as well as continued monitoring of the above-mentioned forum.

The forum in question is flashback.org, which is often frequented by the Swedish extreme right. The thread in question is this one. Sorry for my piss-poor source annotation, but it’s about 2 am in my neck of the woods, and I don’t have the stamina to find all sources, or to go over the by now 600+ pages of posts in the IKEA stabbing thread at flashback.

Sorry Charles for the words I’m going to post, but there are so many occurences of zoomalians, sandniggers, clickniggers, swedes sacrificed on the altar of multiculturialism (to name a few of the keywords you will find repeatedly in the threads (and these were the good ones)) that an immigrated Finn to Sweden can take in one week, and I intend to keep monitoring the site in case of events such as what just happened, the honorable Jim Hoft, bless his heart, leaving much to be desired in terms of source criticism and discernment.

Just so you get how bad the thread is going, some of the participants seem to be convinced that the Swedish government is actively trying to cover up a bona fide IS attack. Which just makes no sense, both the police and the military are crying for money, and frankly, if things pointed in that direction, they would’ve been blabbing by it by now to ensure more funding.

Also, you may hear reports that RPS/Säk, the Swedish (Civilian) Security Service being involved, but so far their involvement is to protect the asylum facilities in Västermanland county, nothing else. And I can understand them doing that, because some posters on flashback have been vocal about arming themselves and maybe even taking to “2nd amendment remedies”.

If you have any questions or requests for clarifications, please feel free to ask them in this thread. I will try to answer them to the best of my ability. If not now, then during the day tomorrow (dunno if I can sleep with all the adrenaline pumping in me right now).

Edit #1 Video of Arrest, h/t Fredrik Pikkuaho & VLT
csp.screen9.com
Edit #2 Sanded down rough linguistic edges, h/t to chalcedony (TYVM :)