A 16-year-old arrested in Sweden after a shooting that killed three youths is no longer a suspect and has been released and three men have been arrested, prosecutors said Friday.
“Suspicions against the 16-year-old have weakened during his time in custody. He is no longer suspected of a crime,” prosecutor Andreas Nyberg said in a statement.
Two men around the ages of 25 and 35 were arrested Thursday suspected of “incitement to murder,” while a third man in his 20s was arrested overnight Thursday to Friday suspected of murder, the statement said.
Three youths aged 15 to 20 were killed in Tuesday’s shooting in broad daylight at a hair salon in central Uppsala, about 45 miles north of Stockholm.
The shooting shocked Sweden amid rising concern over gang violence, though police have not confirmed that the shooting was gang-related.
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Swedish media have reported that at least one of the dead had connections to a criminal gang, though police have not confirmed those reports.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Wednesday called the shooting “an extremely violent act”, saying it looked “like an execution.”
Uppsala is home base for Sweden’s two most notorious gangs, Rumba and Foxtrot.
Their leaders, Ismail Abdo and Rawa Majid, are both now believed to be orchestrating operations from abroad. A new, violent chapter in Sweden’s gang wars began when Abdo’s mother was murdered in 2023 at her home in Uppsala, the BBC reported.
Recent violence in Sweden
Sweden has struggled for years to rein in gang conflicts, which have led to frequent shootings and bombings across the country that have occasionally claimed innocent victims.
Last week, a mother and her young child were severely injured when a homemade bomb tore through their home, media reported, adding that a neighbor suspected of ties to criminal gangs had been the real target.
Earlier in April, two people were killed in a suspected gang fight in Gothenburg, while a renowned rapper was shot dead in a gang battle in the city in December.
Perpetrators are often young teens hired as contract killers because they are under 15, the age of criminal responsibility in Sweden.
The Swedish government has proposed new legislation that would allow police to wiretap children under the age of 15 in an attempt to curb the violence, according to the BBC.
In the country of 10.6 million people, 92 killings were recorded in 2024, 29 fewer than 2023 — the lowest level since 2014, according to official data.
There were also 296 reported shootings, down a fifth on the year before, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s center-right minority government, which is backed in parliament by the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, came to power in 2022 with a vow to get tough on crime.
Sweden was also rocked by its worst mass shooting in February when 35-year-old Rickard Andersson entered the Campus Risbergska adult education center in the city of Orebro and shot dead 10 people before turning the gun on himself.