David Stavrou :Family of murdered Palestinian: 'We’re not safe even in Sweden'
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haaretz.com
STOCKHOLM - Number 7 Sandvagen Street looked like
all the buildings in the quiet Swedish town Limmared – one in a row of
two-story buildings surrounding an inner courtyard, their balconies
facing the street.
Mohammed Tahsin al-Bazam, who lived on the first floor of this building for the past few years, was shot dead on Saturday night by persons unknown who fled the scene immediately after the shooting.
“I was in the car
outside the house when one of the girls called and said she heard
shots,” Bazam’s father told me. “Some of the men climbed to the balcony,
went into his apartment and opened the door from inside. Mohammed was
lying there, with a bullet wound in the neck. He was still alive but
unconscious. He didn’t say anything.”
The Fatah movement and
other Palestinian sources accused the Mossad of assassinating Bazam, a
former Gaza Strip resident in his 20s whose family supports Hamas.
However, in an
interview with a Palestinian news agency, Bazam's father said his son
worked in marketing and was not involved in politics.
Bazam’s
family members who live in Sweden said in an interview this week that
they didn’t know if their relatives in Gaza are involved in politics.
The conversation took place in the home of Bazam’s parents, Abu Hassan
and Asma; one of his younger sisters was present.
When
I came to the neighborhood I was first treated with suspicion. A man
followed me in his car, writing messages on his mobile phone. When I
told him I was a journalist, he said Bazam's family would come to me. A
few seconds later Abu Hassan arrived and asked me to follow him. He took
me to the family home, where there were several adults and children.
The couple has 12
children and 13 grandchildren. Abu Hassan declined to be photographed
but wasn’t hostile. He told me he immigrated to Sweden alone in 2006 and
his family joined him later. Some of the couple’s children were born in
Sweden.
Mohammed was the
couple's fourth child. Their second son, Hassan, was killed in Gaza in
2008, two years after Abu Hassan left for Sweden. The family still owns a
house in Gaza and has visited it three times in the last few years,
most recently in 2013. Abu Hassan was a contract worker but now is
chairman of the Muslim community in the Tranemo municipality, which
Limmared is a part of.
“I came to Sweden to make sure my family had a safe home,” he said. “Now it turns out we’re not safe even in Sweden.”
According to the
Swedish police report earlier this week, several people wearing masks
entered the apartment through a balcony on Saturday evening and shot the
man inside. They disappeared after the shooting.
“I got there
immediately,” the father said. “The shooters were no longer there.
Family members arrived from the whole neighborhood. We tried to get in
but the door was locked.”
Some of Abu Hassan’s
sons-in-law broke into the apartment through the balcony and opened the
front door. When they entered his son was still alive, but unconscious,
said Abu Hassan.
“We took him to a
local hospital, from where he was taken by helicopter to a larger
medical center in Gothenburg, where he died of his wounds,” he said.
Contrary to the
police report, the father recalls that it wasn’t the assassins who broke
into the apartment through the balcony but the relatives, who wanted to
help Bazam.
Abu Hassan had his
own version of the chain of events, but wouldn't say where he got it
from. According to him, “Mohammed opened the door to two men he didn’t
know. When he saw they had guns he closed the door and locked it, but
the men immediately fired two shots through the door and hit him. They
were professionals.”
His daughter added that they must have had silencers.
“If I had come a minute earlier it wouldn’t have happened. But I was too late and they got away,” he said.
On Thursday Abu Hassan traveled with his wife to Mecca, to pray “for Hassan and Mohammed.”
“He was a good guy, 27 years old, a nice man who never harmed anyone and gave to everyone,” Bazam’s sister told me.
Both she and Abu
Hassan denied reports that Bazam had a criminal record and said that he
wasn’t involved in politics. Abu Hassan noted he didn't have any
conflicts, disputes or entanglements with criminal elements. “We all
live around here, we were in touch all the time, if there had been
anything like that we’d know about it," he said. "He had an open heart,
everyone loved him.”
When asked about
rumors that foreigners were involved the shooting, the father said:
“People say what they want. I won’t comment on things that have no
evidence of. We rely on the Swedish police, they’re doing a good job and
I’m sure they’ll catch the perpetrators in a few days.”
A police notice
banning entry was posted on the apartment door, which bore the marks of a
break-in. It was difficult to tell if some of the holes were made by
gunshots. The apartment opposite Bazam’s on the first floor was opened
by two youngsters when I knocked on their door. The two, who seemed
related to the family, refused to talk to me.
The apartment above
Bazam's, on the second floor, appeared uninhabited; there was no name on
the door and nobody answered when I knocked. Across from it lives a
young man and his cat.
“Yes, I was here when
it happened on Saturday," he said. "I was sitting with friends, eating.
I heard one shot and then heard people trying to get in. I didn’t see
the shooters, only the people gathering afterward. I met the murdered
man a few times but I don’t know him. I don’t meddle with other people’s
affairs,” he added.
In the town center, a
few minutes’ drive from the neighborhood, there’s a square, a
supermarket, a few small shops, a small pizzeria and a children’s
playground. Everyone I spoke to here had heard of the murder but none
had known the murdered man.
Four teenagers
wandering in the square said they too heard of the event but didn’t know
the victim. “Sometimes there are break-ins here and small incidents
like that, especially in the last two years,” one of them said. “But
never something like this.”
"It’s usually quiet
and safe here," said aman coming out of the supermarket. "I wasn’t
around on Saturday but heard about it in the media and it surprised me.
I’ve never heard of a murder here.”
A young couple sitting in the square told me they didn't think there were gangs or organized crime in the area.
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