In early May 2020, a 19-year-old was murdered in a small, relatively obscure city in northern Sweden. But search for the young man’s name online – Tommie Lindh – and you’ll get hit after hit from far-right websites and social media accounts the world over. On Telegram, the messaging app called “a safe haven for pro-terror Nazis,” Lindh’s name isn’t hard to find on some of the most prominent extremist channels.
According to them, Lindh was murdered at a house party by a man of African origin as he tried to stop the man from sexually assaulting a white Swedish teenage girl. Lindh, who was said to have affiliations with Swedish neo-Nazi movements, was quickly labeled a “hero” by the international radical right.
But, as a journalist from a Swedish newspaper wrote, there’s just one problem – “the story isn’t true.”
