The Chinese captain of a ship that Sweden boarded this weekend over suspicions it belonged to Russia’s “shadow fleet” has been arrested, the Swedish prosecution authority said on Monday.

Sweden’s coast guard on Sunday boarded the 182-metre (597-foot) Jin Hui, suspected of sailing under a false Syrian flag. It was the latest of several boardings carried out by the Scandinavian country.

Moscow’s “shadow fleet” consists of vessels used to skirt Western sanctions.

They are often ageing ships in poor condition, without proper insurance and with opaque ownership, raising concerns about the risk of an accident.

The Jin Hui is on the sanctions lists of the EU, Britain and Ukraine, Sweden’s Civil Defence Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said on Sunday.

The captain, a Chinese national, was arrested “on suspicion of using a forged document” and of violating Sweden’s maritime code regarding “lack of seaworthiness”, the prosecution authority said in a statement.

“An interrogation of the detainee will be held during the day and contact has been initiated with other authorities and countries,” the prosecutor leading the investigation, Adrien Combier-Hogg, said.

New government accused of ‘performative justice’ and making deals with suspects in 2013 Tadamon massacres

Ahmad al-Homsi is a deep sleeper, but when he was woken last month and told that Amjad Youssef, a Syrian intelligence officer who killed civilians in the 2013 Tadamon massacres, had been arrested, he bolted out of bed. He ran into the street to find other people already celebrating the news.

“We stayed out for almost three or four days celebrating. People from neighbouring areas sent camels, sheep, livestock for us to slaughter and distribute them to people. The tears of joy didn’t stop,” said al-Homsi, a 33-year-old activist with the Tadamon Coordination Committee, which documented the atrocities in the Damascus neighbourhood.

Kurdish Syrian man, 26, said he fled forced conscription by YPG militia because he ‘didn’t want to kill people’

An asylum seeker sent back to France under the controversial “one in, one out” scheme faces being returned to Syria after authorities in Paris ruled it was safe to do so, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.

When the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced the “groundbreaking” deal in July 2025 to stop small boats crowded with asylum seekers from crossing the Channel – by forcibly returning one small-boat asylum seeker to France in exchange for bringing one in northern France legally to the UK – they emphasised that France was a safe country for returnees.

Syrian officials say a group Australians ‘awaiting a solution’ as Albanese government refuses to repatriate them

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The Trump administration says it is in “active communication” with countries, urging them to repatriate citizens stranded in Syria, while the Australian government maintains its hardline stance towards Australian women and children detained since the fall of Islamic State.

A group of four women, their nine children and grandchildren left al-Roj camp, in Syria’s north-east, last Friday in a bid to return to Australia, with reports on Thursday morning that the Albanese government’s refusal to help them has left them stuck in Damascus.

Fadi Saqr is accused of mass killings of civilians in Tadamon, Damascus, where people say he must face justice

A Syrian rights commission is preparing a case accusing Fadi Saqr, a militia leader within the Assad regime, of involvement in crimes against humanity and war crimes, a senior Syrian official has told the Guardian.

Saqr is a former commander of the National Defence Forces (NDF) militia and is widely accused of involvement in the mass killing and forcible disappearance of civilians in the Tadamon neighbourhood of Damascus, as well as other parts of the Syrian capital.

Nine justices were hearing Trump administration that it has authority to strip immigrants’ temporary protected status

The US supreme court heard oral arguments on Wednesday over whether the Trump administration can strip the temporary protected status (TPS) of hundreds of thousands of immigrant Haitians and Syrians, under a program that has shielded them from deportation owing to safety concerns in their countries of origin.

During the arguments, justices in the conservative-leaning majority appeared sympathetic to the Trump administration’s attempts to strip humanitarian protections for the Syrians and Haitians in this case.

Repatriation attempt comes after group was turned around when leaving camp in February. Albanese government says it’s not assisting cohort

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Four Australian women and nine of their children and grandchildren have left al-Roj camp in north-east Syria, seeking to return to Australia.

The group is reportedly travelling across Syria by road to the capital Damascus, under the control of the Syrian government.

Amjad Youssef is one of most-wanted fugitives in relation to slaughter of estimated 288 civilians under Assad

A Syrian former regime official suspected of leading a notorious civilian massacre revealed by the Guardian – and who became one of the country’s most-wanted fugitives after the fall of Bashar al-Assad – has been arrested by security forces, Syria’s interior ministry announced.

Amjad Youssef was captured in the Ghab plain area about 30 miles (50km) outside the city of Hama and had “been taken into custody following a carefully executed security operation”, the interior minister, Anas Khattab, said in a social media post on Friday.