TEHRAN- Israel’s Mossad spy service employed the Iraqi-born man who recently desecrated the holy Quran in Sweden, according to the Iranian Intelligence Ministry.

Based on the statement issued by the ministry on Monday, Salwan Momika was born in Iraq in 1986 and joined the spy service of the Zionist regime in 2019.

The statement also said Momika was “notorious” in his home country, but his notoriety and criminal record were “accepted and welcomed by the Zionists” at the time.

The Intelligence Ministry added that the Israeli intelligence service hired an Iraqi individual who “played a major role in spying on the resistance movement and advancing the project of Iraq’s disintegration.”

The Zionists helped the 37-year-old obtain residence in Sweden as compensation for his treachery of Iraq and the Islamic community, it said.

The statement said Momika continued his “mercenary work for the usurping regime” during his stay in Sweden and was involved in various missions conducive to his new condition.

Referring to the burning of the holy Muslim book, it highlighted, “One such mission was that in recent weeks, following the Zionist regime's plan to suppress the legitimate resistance of the people in the areas occupied in 1967 and the West Bank of the Jordan River, this traitorous agent implemented a dark and blasphemous project.”

The ministry went on to say that the desecration of the Holy Quran by Momika was a part of an Israeli scheme to divert public attention from the regime’s crimes in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin and resistance by Palestinian fighters.

“The evil show of the desecration of the holy Muslim book was organized and executed precisely with the aim of creating media propaganda and marginalizing the news of the heinous and widespread crimes of the Zionist regime in the West Bank, especially the oppressed Jenin,” the statement said.

“This is common practice among the Zionists, who, along with every killing and destruction project, implement another criminal project in order to divert attention from the previous one,” it added.

The Iraqi immigrant trampled on the Quran before lighting several pages alight in front of Stockholm’s largest mosque on June 28. 

The disrespect to the holy book was committed with the permission and protection of Swedish police.