A Swedish artist who survived a collection of assassination tries for drawing of the Prophet Muhammad as a pet has died in a mysterious superior-pace crash.
Lars Vilks, 75, experienced been living underneath spherical-the-clock law enforcement security considering that the 2007 drawing of the Muslim founder fueled dying threats and immediate tries on his daily life.
He died Sunday when the law enforcement vehicle he was traveling crashed head-on with a truck on a highway in close proximity to Markaryd, Swedish officials claimed.
The car or truck — pushed by just one of his bodyguards — veered throughout a guardrail and onto the improper way of the freeway, bursting into flames, as did the truck it smashed headfirst into, officers reported.
Vilks and his two plainclothes officers all died at the scene. The 45-yr-old truck driver was flown to a healthcare facility with severe injuries, authorities said.
Chief Prosecutor Kajsa Sundgren said she had taken more than a preliminary investigation into regardless of whether “any law enforcement officer may have fully commited a crime in link with the accident.”
However, Carina Persson, the law enforcement main for southern Sweden, insisted that “there is absolutely nothing for now that suggests that it was some thing else but a targeted traffic accident.”
“We are hunting into the risk that there could have been some variety of tire explosion,” senior law enforcement officer Stefan Siteus explained — even however the car had puncture-proof tires.
Still, there would be a full investigation to “completely exclude an external act targeting the motor vehicle in which Lars Vilks identified himself,” Sinteus stated at a press convention.
“There is almost nothing to point out that, but we want to be specified so we can rule it out,” he additional.
Vilks had earlier insisted that his Muhammad visuals had been not intended to offend Muslims but to obstacle political correctness in the art world.
But al-Qaeda put a bounty on his head around the 2007 graphic demonstrating the prophet as a doggy, which are regarded unclean by conservative Muslims. Islamic regulation normally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for panic it could lead to idolatry.
In 2010, two men tried using to melt away down his home in southern Sweden, foremost to his total-time police defense.
In 2014, a woman from Pennsylvania who dubbed herself “Jihad Jane” was sentenced to 10 several years in prison following pleading responsible to plotting to eliminate him.
The subsequent 12 months, a no cost-speech seminar that Vilks attended in Copenhagen, Denmark, was attacked by a lone gunman who killed a Danish movie director and wounded three law enforcement officers.
Vilks was whisked away unharmed by bodyguards but conceded that he was very likely the intended goal at the party marking the 25th anniversary of the fatwa against British author Salman Rushdie.
The gunman later on killed a Jewish protection guard outdoors a synagogue and wounded two a lot more officers right before he was killed in a firefight with police.
Several of his functions, which include the 1 depicting Muhammad’s head on the physique of a puppy, are at present on exhibit in Warsaw, Poland. The performs are remaining shown as section an exhibition curated by a suitable-wing director that aims to obstacle remaining-wing political correctness.
Having said that, Swedish law enforcement said they are not mindful of any new concrete threats in opposition to him ahead of Sunday’s fatal crash.
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