Salwan Momika, an Iraqi immigrant who set off protests in Sweden and several Muslim countries when he burned a Quran in Stockholm in 2023, has been killed, the Swedish Prosecution Authority said Thursday morning.
The police said that they had arrested five people and that a murder investigation had been launched.
Mr. Momika had been set to appear in Stockholm District Court on Thursday morning. He was scheduled to receive a verdict on charges related to the Quran burning that prompted international outrage in 2023, and to other demonstrations later that year at which he repeated the act.
The shooting took place late on Wednesday in Sodertalje, a city near Stockholm.
The authorities did not say if they believed the killing was connected to Mr. Momika’s burning of the Quran, but Ulf Kristersson, Sweden’s prime minister, said that the country’s security service was looking into the killing.
“There is obviously a risk that there is also a connection with a foreign power,” Mr. Kristersson told reporters. Mr. Momika’s defense attorney, Anna Roth, said he had received death threats.
“He was quite convinced that he would sooner or later be killed,” Ms. Roth said in a phone interview on Thursday.
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