Salwan Momika, the man who triggered violent protests after burning the Quran, was shot and killed in Sweden, prosecutors confirmed.
The shooting took place in an apartment in Södertälje, Stockholm, on Wednesday evening.
Mr. Momika, an Iraqi living in Sweden, had set fire to a copy of Islam’s holy book outside Stockholm Central Mosque in 2023, sparking widespread unrest.
Swedish police announced that five people had been arrested following the fatal shooting of a man in his 40s overnight.
Authorities were alerted to a suspected shooting in Hovsjö at approximately 23:11 local time (22:11 GMT) on Wednesday.
Officers arrived to find the victim suffering from gunshot wounds, and he was transported to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead on Thursday morning.
Although police have not officially named the victim, local media reported that Mr. Momika had been livestreaming on social media at the time of the shooting.
In August 2023, Mr. Momika was charged alongside another individual with “agitation against an ethnic group” for incidents that occurred four times during the summer.
His verdict was scheduled for Thursday but was postponed after the Stockholm District Court “confirmed that one of the defendants had died.”
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson stated that the country’s security services were involved in the investigation due to the “obvious risk that there were links to foreign powers,” as reported by SVT.
Mr. Momika had organized multiple anti-Islam protests, leading to outrage in numerous Muslim-majority countries.
Unrest erupted twice outside the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, and Sweden’s ambassador was expelled as tensions escalated.
While Swedish authorities had permitted Mr. Momika’s Quran-burning demonstration under the country’s free speech laws, the government later vowed to explore legal avenues to restrict protests involving the burning of religious texts under certain conditions.
Source-BBC
