The Danish-Swedish politician was reached by the news via Turkish media on Thursday.
– They must understand that something that may be illegal in Turkey does not have to be illegal in Sweden. In Sweden, a prosecutor has already looked at my case and judged that it was not illegal, he says.
Turkey’s Minister of Justice Yilmaz Tunc writes on Twitter that the arrest warrant, in addition to Paludan, also applies to the man who stomped on the Koran outside the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm on Thursday, as well as eight unnamed people.
Rasmus Paludan says that he neither had nor has any plans to visit Turkey and therefore sees the situation as a Turkish “PR matter”. No Turkish authorities have contacted him on the matter, he says.
– If they want to question me, they can call. I don’t usually hang up the phone right away, but I’ll probably laugh if they get in touch, he says.
Must have jurisdiction
An arrest warrant for a person in another country does not mean that country must act.
– Then it is required that an international wanted notice be issued first. When there is, it is up to the country in question to decide whether the person should be extradited or not, says Per Hedvall, head of agency at the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Pål Wrange, professor of international law at Stockholm University, explains that a lot is required for an extradition. One of the conditions is that the act is punishable in the country from which the person is to be extradited.
– In Sweden it is not. Second, Turkish courts must have jurisdiction. In the case of actions carried out in other countries, that space is very small. It only applies to special crimes such as war crimes or something that threatens the security of a country. Thirdly, the person in question cannot be a Swedish citizen, because Sweden, like many other countries, does not extradite its own citizens.
Rasmus Paludan also has Danish citizenship, but Denmark does not extradite its own citizens either.