Mohammed Khalid Mohammed Mohammed, an 18-year-old Iraqi migrant, has been taken into custody by Swedish authorities on suspicion of murdering Mikael Janicki, a 40-year-old Polish national. Janicki was shot dead in front of his 12-year-old son as they were cycling towards a swimming pool in southern Stockholm last month.

According to a police source cited by Swedish news outlet Samnytt, the suspect had been criminally active for at least two years and had previously been suspected of four robberies, attempted theft, assault, vandalism, and multiple drug offenses. Mohammed had been convicted in 2022 for drug-related offenses and was charged last year with robbery after stolen goods were found in his possession, Remix News reports.

The Iraqi-born suspect, who arrived in Sweden with his family in 2007 and acquired Swedish citizenship five years later, was well known to the authorities. At the age of 15, he was taken into state care due to substance abuse, criminal activity, and socially destructive behavior, as revealed by social service documents seen by the Swedish press.

The suspect is accused of being part of a gang that confronted Janicki and his son in an underpass as they cycled to a nearby swimming pool on April 10. According to Swedish newspaper Expressen, the gang threatened the man and his son, prompting the protective father to confront them after asking his son to keep his distance. Janicki was subsequently shot dead with a single bullet to the head.

As Mohammed was under the age of 18 at the time of the murder, he would be tried as a minor and could receive a much shorter custodial sentence, with a maximum of eight years.

Janicki's death is another tragic statistic amid the exponential rise in fatal shootings across Sweden in recent years.

In 2022, a record 62 out of 391 reported shootings were fatal, surpassing the 45 firearm fatalities recorded the previous year. Last year, the number fell slightly, with 53 fatal shootings out of a total of 363 firearms incidents.