He was hunted for years by the al-Qaeda terrorist network and has now died in a traffic accident …
The Swedish artist Lars Vilks (75) is dead. According to the Swedish media, he was killed when a truck near Markaryd in Småland in southern Sweden collided with the police car in which he was sitting and which was parked for his protection.
According to the Swedish news agency TT, the police have already confirmed that the artist was in the car with two officers who also died. The exact cause of the accident is still being investigated. According to previous knowledge, the car had got into the opposite lane, collided with the truck there and burned out.
Photo: Johan Nilsson / AP
“data-zoom-src =” https://bilder.bild.de/fotos/die-unfallstelle-an-der-das-polizeiauto-in-dem-vilks-sass-mit-dem-lastwagen-kollidierte-2c83126f56054dfd9fa007e427c528d3- 77862508 / image / 1.bild.jpg “/> The scene of the accident where the police car Vilks was sitting in collided with the truckPhoto: Johan Nilsson / AP
An artist in the sights of terror
Vilks was targeted by terrorists because of his drawings in which he portrayed the prophet Mohammed as a dog. The terrorist network al-Qaeda put a bounty of $ 150,000 on him in September 2007.
► In May 2010, two men threw gas bottles into his house through a window while he was being attacked by a spectator and slightly injured during a lecture at Uppsala University. “I keep receiving threats by mail and phone,” he said in an interview.
► When Sweden’s capital Stockholm narrowly escaped a devastating terrorist catastrophe in December 2010 – a suicide bomber blew himself up in the middle of the hustle and bustle of shopping, miraculously nobody died except the bomber – a threatening email had been received beforehand. It condemned the deployment of Swedish soldiers in Afghanistan – and “the silence of the Swedish people” on the Mohammed caricature by Vilks.
► In January 2014, Colleen LaRose, alias “Jihad Jane”, who had converted to Islam, was sentenced to ten years in prison in the USA because she wanted to kill Vilks together with Islamist conspirators. The murder plot was never carried out. Although LaRose traveled to Europe in 2008, a meeting with the masterminds of the conspiracy did not take place.
► In 2015, a man was killed and three police officers injured at a discussion event in Copenhagen that Vilks attended. The police assume that the attack is an assassination attempt on Vilks.
Before his drawing of Mohammed, Vilks was largely unknown outside of Sweden. In his homeland he achieved dubious fame because he erected the huge wooden installation “Nimis” made of driftwood in a nature reserve in southern Sweden without a permit, which sparked a protracted legal battle. He has been fined, but the seaside sculpture attracts tens of thousands of visitors every year. In 2015 it was partially destroyed by arson.
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