Salwan Momika, man behind the Qur’an burning in Sweden is killed

Salwan Momika, an Iraqi immigrant who set out protests in Sweden and several Muslim countries when he burned a Quran in Stockholm in 2023, has been killed, the Swedish prosecution authority said on Thursday morning.

Police said they had arrested five people and that a murder examination had been launched.

Mr. Momika was set to perform in the Stockholm District Court on Thursday morning. He was scheduled to receive a sentence on charges related to the Qur’an, which was burning, which received international indignation in 2023, and to other demonstrations later that year when he repeated the action.

The shooting took place late Wednesday in Soderalje, a city near Stockholm.

Authorities did not say if they thought the killing was associated with Mr. Momika’s combustion of the Qur’an, but Ulf Kristerssson, Sweden’s Prime Minister, said the country’s security service investigated the killing.

“There is clearly a risk that there is also a connection with a foreign power,” Mr Kristerssson told journalists. Mr. Momika’s defense lawyer, Anna Roth, said he had received death threats.

“He was quite convinced that he would sooner or later be killed,” said Ms. Roth in a phone interview on Thursday.

Mr. Momika had set the Qur’an on fire under Eid Al-Adha, a great Islamic holiday, outside a mosque in Stockholm. He said he tried to raise awareness of the abuse and killing of Christian minorities by Islamists in some parts of the Muslim world.

“I warn the Swedish people about the dangers of this book,” Mr. Momika said through a megaphone outside the mosque.

The response from the Muslim world was fast and furious, with much of the criticism aimed at the Swedish authorities so as not to stop the burning.

In Iraq, hundreds of people stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad and set parts of it on fire. Iraq expelled Sweden’s ambassador and instructed his ambassador to Sweden to withdraw from his embassy in Stockholm.

Egypt called the Qur’an burning ”A shameful act. “And Morocco remembered his ambassador in Sweden, Its State News Agency reported.

The Swedish authorities had condemned Mr. Momika’s actions at the time, but police gave a permit for his planned demonstration after a Swedish court determined that a ban on it would affect the right to freedom of expression.

However, the permit does not allow him to burn items, and Mr. Momika was then charged with agitation against an ethnic or national group in four events in kicking, stamping and burning a Quran. He also gave speeches with derogatory statements aimed at Muslims and Islam, according to the indictment.

“The fact that statements are made on a large square and communicated is a prerequisite for encouraging racial hatred,” said Anna Hankkio, a Swedish prosecutor who originally brought the charges against Mr. Momika. “It is up to the court to assess whether the burning of the Qur’an can also be regarded as an incentive to a group of people.”

Later that summer, Mr. Momika again the Quranic according to the indictment.

The Qur’an Burning – and the resulting horror and indignation of the Muslim world – triggered debates in Sweden that have struggled with whether to allow such protests.

Before Mr. Momika burned the Holy Book, the Swedish authorities had denied other Anti-Quran protests, referring to concern about disturbing public order. After the burning, Sweden’s Foreign Ministry called Mr. Momika’s action Islamophobic, and officials warned that such protests could affect the country’s national security policy. The domestic security agency briefly traveled its terrorist threat against its most serious term.

Salwan Najem, who took over Mr. Momika in some protests and was also accused of burning a Quran was a co -defendant in the case to be decided on Thursday. He is now ready to receive his judgment on February 3rd.

Thursday, Mr. Najem fear, Submission of a link on x To a story about Mr. Momika’s killing.

“I’m next time,” he wrote.