A man who burnt the Quran in Sweden in 2023 and drew criticism from Muslim countries has been shot dead, news agency AFP reported on Thursday.
A Stockholm court was set to rule on Thursday whether Salwan Momika, an Iraqi Christian who burnt the Quran during protests, was guilty of inciting ethnic hatred. The ruling was postponed after the court said, “one of the defendants has died.”
Momika’s public desecration of the Quran in 2023 led to protests in several Muslim-majority countries. The burnings strained Sweden’s relations with countries in the Middle East and led the government to increase security measures.
Swedish prosecutors had charged Momika and another man, Salwan Najem, with “offences of agitation against an ethnic or national group.” Prosecutors said the two men burned the Quran and made derogatory remarks about Muslims on four occasions, including an incident outside a Stockholm mosque.
“Both men are prosecuted for having on these four occasions made statements and treated the Quran in a manner intended to express contempt for Muslims because of their faith,” Senior Prosecutor Anna Hankkio was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera in its report.
“In my opinion, the men’s statements and actions fall under the provisions on agitation against an ethnic or national group, and it is important that this matter is tried in court,” she added.
Prosecutors have said that the primary evidence in the case was video recordings of the incidents. Najem denied wrongdoing, his lawyer, Mark Safaryan, told news agency Reuters.
“The permit granted in connection with the demonstration is covered by my client’s intent. His rights are protected by the Swedish Constitution,” Safaryan said.
Momika had said he wanted to protest against Islam as an institution and called for banning its holy book. Sweden’s migration agency had moved to deport him over false information in his residency application but said the order would not be enforced due to the risk of torture in Iraq.
SALWAN MOMIKA, ISLAM’S VOCIFEROUS CRITIC
On Eid in June 2023, Salwan Momika stepped on a copy of the Quran and set it on fire outside Stockholm’s largest mosque. The incident was captured on the camera.
Little is known about Momika’s early life, but images and videos show him as a militia leader in Iraq.
In an earlier video, he described himself as the head of a Christian militia. His group was part of the Imam Ali Brigades, an organisation formed in 2014 and accused of war crimes, according to France24.
The Imam Ali Brigades operates under the Popular Mobilisation Forces, a network of groups, some of which have been integrated into the Iraqi army to fight the Islamic State.
Momika led his armed group on the outskirts of Mosul in 2017.
In 2018, he fled Iraq after a power struggle with Rayan al-Kaldani, the leader of another Christian militia.
