Cartoonist Lars Vilks, known for drawing Muhammad as a dog in 2007 - and who had lived under protection ever since - died in a car accident in Sweden.
Having escaped an attack in 2015 in Copenhagen, he was the victim of a collision between the car in which he was traveling, with two police officers, and a truck coming from the opposite direction. Following the collision, the two vehicles caught fire.
The authorities have ascertained that there are no elements to assess the hypothesis of a malicious act.
Vilks has received numerous threats from Islamists in the past. On February 14, 2015, a Dane of Palestinian origin opened fire while a debate on freedom of expression was taking place in Copenhagen, organized after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. The designer, who was the protagonist of the meeting with the French ambassador, was left unharmed, while a 55-year-old Danish director had lost his life. Later that same evening, the attacker also killed a keeper of the Copenhagen synagogue. The next morning he had himself been killed by the police during a firefight.
(Unioneonline / ss)