Swedish men get jail for bomb attacks on asylum centres

SWEDEN: Three men with ties to the Swedish neo-Nazi movement were sentenced on Friday to up to eight and a half years in prison for bomb attacks in western Sweden over the past year.

Viktor Melin, 23, received the longest sentence for carrying out bomb attacks on a left-wing bookstore and an asylum center and an attempted bombing of a second asylum center.



The attacks took place in November and January. Nobody was killed but one man was seriously wounded in the asylum center attack.

A 50-year old man, Jimmy Jonasson, was sentenced to five years in prison for assisting in two of the attacks and a 20-year old man, Anton Thulin, got one year and six months for assisting in the attempted bombing.

"All three men have a common background in the Nordic Resistance Movement and got to know each other through that organization," Gothenburg District Court said in its verdict.

The neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement is known as one of the most violent far-right groups in Sweden. In a 2009 report, Swedish security police said the organization's goal was to establish a totalitarian government through revolution.



However, the prosecutor has said there were no signs of a direct link between the group and the recent attacks.

The two younger men who have been sentenced received paramilitary training in Russia prior to the attacks, the verdict stated.