Iraqi citizen Salwan Momika, who gained notoriety for public Quran burnings in 2023, has been shot dead in the Swedish city of Södertälje on Thursday.
“A man in his 40s was found shot dead at the scene in a flat and taken to hospital,” the Stockholm police press office said and specified that the man had died.
Momika was shot the night before during a live broadcast he was hosting on TikTok. Five people have been detained in connection with the shooting.
Sentencing was scheduled for Thursday in the case of inciting a group of people in connection with four different Quran burnings in 2023. The Stockholm District Court said:
“As it is confirmed that one of the defendants is dead, the sentence must be adapted to the fact that it is not possible to sentence a dead person.”
Another defendant in the case, Salwan Najem, commented in X on the news of the death as “I am next.”
Momika came from Iraq to Sweden in 2018. In 2021, the man received a three-year residence permit, and in the spring of 2024 he had his visa extended for another year. He gained notoriety in the summer of 2023 when he publicly burned the Quran several times in protest against Islam.
“He risks torture and inhuman treatment if he returns to his home country,” the kingdom’s Migration Agency explained. Momika himself described himself as “perhaps the only true refugee in Sweden and Europe who needs help.”
