Iraqi Man Who Made Headlines After Setting Quran on Fire Gunned Down in Sweden

An Iraqi man who previously made headlines for burning a copy of the Quran was shot and killed in Sweden.

Anti-Islam activist Salwan Momika was shot dead in the country's capital city of Stockholm on Wednesday. Five people have been arrested following his assassination, Swedish authorities told CNN.

According to reports, Momika had been actively livestreaming on social media when he was killed.

Momika, who came to Sweden from Iraq in 2018, believed that the Quran "should be banned in the world because of the danger it causes to democracy, ethics, human values, human rights, and women's rights. It just doesn't work in this time and age."

In 2023, he staged protests in Stockholm where he burned and otherwise desecrated the Quran, sparking outrage on social media and in many Muslim-majority nations. He set fire to a copy of the Quran in front of Stockholm's central mosque on the first day of the Islamic celebration of Eid al-Adha.

Momika had obtained a permit to conduct the protest from Swedish law enforcement, who tried to prevent further instances of protest giving way to unrest by denying Momika further permits. However, he was eventually permitted to protest in accordance with Sweden's freedom of speech laws.

In August, Momika had been charged with "agitation against an ethnic group" in connection to four separate incidents which took place in the summer of 2023.

The verdict of his case was set to be delivered on Thursday, but the Stockholm District Court delayed its delivery after it was "confirmed that one of the defendants had died."

An investigation is being carried out involving Swedish security services as there is "obviously a risk" that the assassination is somehow linked "to foreign powers," said Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.