Gang leader Rawa Majid has been detained in his absence by three different Swedish district courts. But because of his Turkish passport, Sweden has not been able to extradite him.
Now it is clear that Rawa Majid risks having his Turkish citizenship revoked. According to court documents that SVT has seen, a legal process has been going on in secret since last year – where Majid is suspected of falsifying documents linked to his application for citizenship.
Prosecutor Henrik Söderman was the one who submitted the first extradition petition to Turkey, which was rejected.
– Should he not be a Turkish citizen, the matter will be in a different situation. Without predicting the events, it opens up the possibility of sending a new extradition petition, for example, he says.
Several ongoing cases against Majid
At the National Unit against International and Organized Crime, several cases are currently underway where Rawa Majid has been detained and also where he has been requested to be extradited from Turkey. Deputy Chief Prosecutor Hanna Lemoine is one of the prosecutors involved, and she says the new information is interesting.
– In general, it is a general principle that countries do not extradite their own citizens. And purely hypothetically, a revoked citizenship puts this in a different light, says Hanna Lemoine.
Prosecutor: Would facilitate
Chamber prosecutor Anna Stråth, who has also requested that Majid be detained in absentia, was not aware of the ongoing legal process. But she believes that a revoked citizenship would make it easier.
– Then there would be greater opportunities for Turkey to approve the extradition request, says Anna Stråth.
The background to the Turkish accusations is that Rawa Majid bought his Turkish citizenship through a real estate investment in the country. But according to the court documents, he applied for the passport in a completely different name from an Iraqi passport.
Majid denies the criminal charges and believes that he changed his name in Iraq to facilitate an inheritance conflict.