An individual from the far-left extremist landscape in Sweden has been charged with possession of illegal weapons after the authorities found a cache of semi-automatic rifles and police uniforms in a rented storage unit.
The 32-year-old, whose name has yet to be released by authorities, originally comes from the small town of Gislaved, and faces prosecution on severe weapons offense charges according to prosecutors who mentioned the considerable number of semi-automatic rifle parts that were discovered in the storage unit, Sveriges Radio reported.
Petra Schöniger, the lead prosecutor in charge of the investigation had the following to say about the charges: “The investigation shows that the operational weapon of the AR-15 type has been assembled and completed inside the container and that it has subsequently been fired. Other parts of the same rifle type found could have been assembled into four fully operational weapons.”
When the weapons were discovered during the summer of 2018, police initially believed that they were somehow linked to organized crime groups since police uniforms and other disguises were found alongside the weapons. But soon after, a teacher and another man – both with links to radical far-left extremism – were arrested in connection to the cache of weapons.
Since the initial discovery, more stockpiles of weapons were also found between cities of Jönköping and Huskvarna, including an arsenal stumbled upon by orienteers last fall which contained weapons parts and cartridges that matched the kind of assault rifles that were found in the storage unit.
Thus far, no official theory has been put forward by the prosecution as far as what the rifles were going to be used for. However, Prosecutor Schöniger has confirmed that the investigation has revealed concrete ties between the defendant and the far-left scene in the country. When commenting on the case, Schöniger noted, “the crime should be judged as extremely serious.”
In recent years, the threat of violent far-left extremism has increased considerably across a number of European countries – especially in Germany.
Last year, it was revealed by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency BfV that between 2012 and 2017, violent crimes linked to leftist extremism had increased by 88 percent, according to a report by the AP News in Germany.
Earlier this year, Il Giornale reported that Italy’s intelligence service issued a similar warning which claimed that far-left Antifa radicals were becoming increasingly violent.
In its annual report on annual domestic and foreign threats, Italian security services stated, “Information findings have shown a growing tendency towards radicalization, especially through the dissemination of documentation and detailed data on the objectives to hit, combined with attempts to favor tactical convergence between the different visions of anarchist action.”
