Quran-burning activist Salwan Momika has been shot dead in his apartment in Sweden, according to reports.
The incident was reportedly live-streamed on TikTok and a clip purporting to show the sequence of events was circulated on social media.
Momika was shot while he was broadcasting live on social media. Five people have reportedly been arrested for suspected involvement in the incident.
Police said they were called out at 11.11pm on Wednesday to an incident in the Hovsjö district after reports of a gunshot inside an apartment building.
Daniel Wikdahl told the TT newswire in the early hours of Thursday morning: “We were called out at 11.11pm to a suspected shooting and we have been able to confirm that one person is injured.”
Salwan Najem, a fellow activist and friend of Momika, later told the Swedish newspaper Expressen that he had been contacted by police who confirmed that Momika had died.
Momika and Najem were due in court at 11am on Thursday after having been charged with hate crimes.
According to prosecutors, the two had allegedly burned a Quran, wrapped it in pork and kicked it around on the ground.
They also reportedly made comments that could be classified as “inciting hatred against a group of people”.
Momika was an Iraqi refugee and atheist anti-Islam activist who regularly arranged public demonstrations where he burnt the Quran.
His actions sparked fury and outrage across and Muslim world and led to a number of protests that targeted Swedish institutions abroad.
Sweden’s embassy in Iraq was stormed twice by protesters in July 2023, where they started a fire in the compound on the second occasion.
Terror alerts were raised to four on a scale of five throughout Sweden in response to the Iraqi attacks, with intelligence agencies warning that the country was a “prioritised target”.
The Swedish Migration Agency revoked Momika’s residency permit in October 2023, citing false information in his original application.
However he was granted a temporary one to prevent his extradition to Iraq, following an application by Baghdad a couple of months earlier.