Updated 17:25 | Published 16:57
Before Salwan Momika became a world-renowned Koran burner, he shared a room with Eritrean Makele in a refugee accommodation in Älvsbyn.
One night in the spring of 2021, Makele was threatened with death by Salwan Momika, who went at him with a knife – before he was stopped by a comrade.
– I’m sure he would have killed me, says Makele, who still has nightmares about the incident.
Makele was born in Eritrea just over 50 years ago. There he worked for over 22 years as both a soldier and a fireman before it became too dangerous for him to remain in the country and he fled to Sweden.
But it’s an incident in Älvsbyn in Norrbothnia that makes it difficult for him to sleep at night.
– I was sleeping. He had been out and came back at half past twelve. We slept in the same room and when he came home he started smoking cigarettes in the room. As I am asthmatic, I asked him why he would smoke inside, says Makele.
There are divided opinions about what happened next.
– It wasn’t just that he smoked cigarettes, he shouted that he was going to poop in the bedroom by my bed, says Makele.
– I said that he is not allowed to smoke indoors, then he said: ‘if you want, I can kill you’. I asked what I had done to make him kill me, then he got angry and went out to the kitchen and came back with a knife.
“I will kill you”
Makele claims that Salwan Momika went at him with the knife and repeatedly shouted “I will kill you, I will kill you”. Only a few meters from the bed, Momika was stopped by his Iraqi friend with whom he had been out, and who was going to sleep over.
In police interrogation, Momika claims that he did nothing at all, just washed himself, opened the windows in the apartment and then went to bed.
But Momika’s Iraqi friend, who witnessed the incident, corroborated Makele’s testimony. Both concerning the death threats, the knife and the fact that he had to tangibly stop him.
After the incident, Makele ran to a friend in a house nearby, whereupon the friend called the police, who soon arrived.
When Salwan Momika was later questioned by the police, he replied that both the others were lying. The man he first described as a friend he pointed out instead as a spy who works for the mafia.
“Eventually, Salwan understood that XX was spying on him, that he was monitoring him and giving information about him to others,” reads the interrogation.
“Salwan lies a lot”
Salwan Momika was sentenced by the Luleå district court for illegal threats to probation and 80 hours of community service. He was also to pay SEK 10,000 in damages to Makele.
When we meet Makele one afternoon in the SFI premises in a Stockholm suburb, he has just had a lesson, after a night shift at the cleaning job.
He is trying to put the four or five months he lived with Salwan Momika in Älvsbyn behind him. Immediately after the threat, the Migration Agency moved Salwan Momika, and since then they have never met, except for the days Luleå district court took up the case.
– It was very difficult to understand Salwan’s behaviour. Usually if I was at home and he lit cigarettes, I left. We didn’t used to hang out that much.
Placed the shoes on the Koran
Makele remembers that Salwan Momika had a Koran close at hand in the apartment in Älvsbyn. He put his shoes on when he got home.
– I asked why he did that and he replied: ‘Because I don’t like Islam. I don’t like Muslims’, says Makele.
In addition to reading Swedish for immigrants, Makele works five days and two nights each week as a cleaner. He hopes to train as a firefighter.
He had not heard that Salwan Momika was sentenced last summer for the death threat. Nor does he claim to have received any compensation for infringement.
– I think he should have been sentenced to prison. I have also received no medical care or support.
Are you disappointed?
– What I hear now does not make me happy.
Footnote: Makele is actually called something else. Aftonbladet has unsuccessfully sought Salwan Momika for his view on the circumstances surrounding the verdict.