Sweden will not probe hanging Erdogan’s effigy

Swedish Public Prosecution said on Monday that hanging of an effigy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by PKK/PYD in Stockholm does not need criminal investigation.

“A decision has been taken not to initiate a preliminary investigation,” a spokeswoman for Sweden’s Prosecution Authority said.

Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet, reported the spokesman saying that Public Prosecutor, Lucas Eriksson said: “I did not think it [hanging the effigy] could amount to defamation.”

Last week, Kurdish Rojava Committee of Sweden compared Erdogan to Italy’s late dictator, Benito Mussolini.

“History shows how dictators end up,” the group wrote on Twitter, accompanied by a video showing pictures of Mussolini’s 1945 execution and then a dummy dressed up to look like Erdogan swinging from a rope outside Stockholm’s City Hall.

READ: Turkiye calls for Sweden to fight PKK provocations

Swedish Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, and Foreign Minister, Tobias Billstrom, condemned the action. Both of them said it was an attempt to “sabotage” Sweden’s NATO membership bid.

Turkiye, which refused to ratify Sweden’s application to the NATO, summoned Sweden’s ambassador in Ankara following the action.

Ankara argues that Sweden, in particular, has failed to fulfil a series of commitments both countries made at a NATO summit in June.