Salwan Momika is reported to have been killed in an apartment in Södertälje, Stockholm, on Wednesday evening, January 29.
A 38-year-old man who sparked violent protests after burning the Quran has been killed in Sweden.
Unrest broke out after Momika set fire to a copy of Islam’s holy book outside Stockholm Central Mosque in 2023.
Stockholm police said in a statement that five people had been arrested after a man in his 40s was shot dead overnight. Police were alerted to a shooting in the city of Södertälje, where Momika lived.
The shooting occurred indoors, and when police arrived, they found a man who had been “hit by shots.” The victim was taken to the hospital, but his condition was not immediately confirmed.
Local media reported that Momika had been livestreaming on social media around the time he was shot.
Momika, an Iraqi living in Sweden, was charged in August, alongside another individual, with “agitation against an ethnic group” on four occasions in the summer of 2023.
The verdict, due to be delivered on Thursday, was postponed after it was “confirmed that one of the defendants had died,” Stockholm District Court said.
Momika carried out a series of anti-Islam protests, sparking outrage in many Muslim-majority countries. The unrest led to protests at the Swedish embassy in Baghdad twice, and the Swedish ambassador was expelled amid a diplomatic row.
The Swedish government had given Momika permission for the protest in which he burned the holy book, citing its free-speech laws. However, it later pledged to explore legal means of abolishing protests that involve burning religious texts in certain circumstances.
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