Ildar Galiyev is suspected of being behind the murder spree - keeps silent through the interrogation

In 2023, Sweden will be plagued by an incalculable number of shootings and bombings. In September of the same year, the already serious development of violence shines through. Now begins one of the bloodiest periods in Swedish criminal history.

Within 22 days, twelve people are killed in the wave of violence sweeping the country. In some cases, the victims have no connections to the criminal environment at all.

Exactly who orchestrated the brutal acts has long been unclear, but since several leading figures in various networks have been arrested recently, the contours of how the violence was planned are emerging. The strategists behind the wave of violence seem to be surprisingly few.

One of those singled out as a key player is the now 26-year-old Ildar Galiyev, who was arrested in Greece in 2024. He has been named as a leader of violence within the Dalen criminal network. Initially, he was believed to have been torpedoed. After that, he must have risen through the ranks all the way up to the management level.

On November 3, the trial against Ildar Galiyev begins in a security room in the Stockholm district court. The list of charges is record long.

During September 2023, a team of five prosecutors suspects that he was highly active. Then he allegedly ordered five exceptionally serious acts of violence in 13 days.

These are two contract killings and three explosions, one of which was fatal. In several of the cases, Ildar Galiyev is believed to have followed the deed via group video calls and remotely controlled the perpetrators from abroad, at a safe distance from the chaotic situation in Sweden.

The trial is huge and is expected to last until March next year. But the question is how cooperative Ildar Galiyev will be when questioned in court. When questioned by the police during the investigation, he has consistently remained silent.

Many criminal suspects usually answer "no comment" to the police's questions - Ildar Galiyev says nothing. "Ildar is sitting quietly" it is noted time and time again in the minutes from the witness hearings earlier this year.

- He has not said anything at all, says Åsa Lidefelt Skog, one of the prosecutors in the case.

What do you expect during the trial?

- It is not unlikely that he will continue. But it is also not unusual for suspects to start giving explanations only in the district court.

How the 26-year-old will act in the district court is still uncertain, according to his attorney Markus Bergdahl. He does not want to comment on how Ildar Galiyev reasons about the trial.

- It's something I keep between me and my client, says Markus Bergdahl.

During the interrogation of Ildar Galiyev, the police read out, among other things, witness statements from a woman who was unlucky enough to be in the stairwell of the property in Linköping that was subjected to an explosion on September 26, 2023. The woman says that she was hurled into a stone wall when the pot bomb exploded. When she then screams, she doesn't hear herself scream. Her ears are damaged after the explosion.

Ildar Galiyev is asked what he thinks when he hears the woman's story. The answer is silence.

He remains silent even when asked if he is the one communicating under the alias "LeftFoeDead" on the Signal app. The police also believe that Ildar Galiyev went by the names "Segador" and "War" in various chats.

While the 26-year-old sits quietly during the interrogation, the police believe that he was very communicative in these chats. Here he is suspected of having given executors tangible advice down to a detailed level about explosive charges. He also allegedly instructed them how to act.