Sweden arrests Syrian asylum-seeker for 'war crimes'

A Syrian asylum-seeker appeared in court in Sweden Thursday accused of war crimes in his home country, with photographs on the Internet forming part of the evidence against him, a prosecutor said.

Mohamad Abdullah, 31, who arrived in Sweden in July 2015, admitted to being a member of the regime in Syria, but denied being a fighter.

The case against Abdullah, who was arrested on Tuesday, was based on photographs and other information that appeared on social media, Reena Devgun, a prosecutor with the Swedish International Public Prosecution Office, told AFP after the closed-door hearing.

She would not elaborate on the alleged crime but said it was believed to have been committed between March 2012 and July 2015.

Abdullah, who has not yet been formally charged, was remanded in custody by the Stockholm District Court.

Around 163,000 asylum-seekers arrived in Sweden last year, part of the huge wave of migrants flooding into Europe, many fleeing war in Syria.

In December, Hassan al-Mandlawi and Al-Amin Sultan, both Swedish nationals, were sentenced to life in prison after graphic videos showed them taking part in the killing of two men in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo which has been ravaged by more than four-years of war.

Also in December, authorities in neighbouring Finland arrested two Iraqi brothers who appeared in a video of the Camp Speicher massacre carried out by the Islamic State group (IS) in the Iraqi city of Tikrit.

At least 1,700 army cadets were killed in the massacre carried out by the militant group only days after capturing Mosul in June 2014.

Finish investigators said the 23-year-old twins who had arrived in the country in September were suspected of killing 11 people.

Chief Inspector Jari Raty said that in the video the two suspects "were not masked".

Agencies contributed to this report