The Social Democrats member of parliament has been in trouble since May last year. Then he defied his party’s recommendation and attended a Palestine conference criticized for its Hamas connection.
Expressen’s leader page now writes that Jamal El-Haj tried to influence an asylum case about an Egyptian imam who continuously preaches in the Scandinavian Wakf mosque in Malmö.
Shared posts in terror labeled group
In a service note drawn up in June 2017, it can be read that El-Haj called the case officer at the Swedish Migration Agency. He introduced himself with his full name and that he is a Member of Parliament for the Social Democrats.
He is also said to have said that he “wishes to give evidence regarding the importance of the applicant being allowed to stay in Sweden and that it would be a loss for Sweden if the applicant were to be deported”. However, he does not want the information to be added to the case.
The imam in question is said, according to Expressen, to have lectured in an extremist-linked mosque in Skåne together with two Salafist preachers in 2015. One of them was later identified as a threat to Sweden’s security.
On social media, the imam is said to have shared posts from people within the terrorist-labeled Muslim Brotherhood. The imam has also praised the movement’s spiritual leader, a figure who legitimized suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and described the Holocaust as divine punishment against Jews.
“Now I would have done it differently”
In an email to Expressen, Jamal El-Haj writes:
“My sole purpose for the conversation was to provide information that I thought was relevant and useful to society. I left it at one point.
I now realize that the case manager could have perceived the conversation as a way to influence. In hindsight, it was wrong of me to act like that. I was new to the Riksdag. Now I would have done it differently”.