Mohammad cartoonist killed in car crash while under police protection

Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who stirred worldwide controversy in 2007 for his depiction of the Prophet Mohammad with the body of a dog, was killed in a car crash while under police protection, Reuters reported.

Swedish authorities said Vilks was traveling in a police vehicle that collided with a truck near the southern town of Markaryd on Sunday. 

Authorities also said that two police officers were killed in the accident, according to Reuters. 

“This is a very tragic incident. It is now important to all of us that we do everything we can to investigate what happened and what caused the collision,” Swedish police said in a statement. 

The driver of the truck that crashed into the police vehicle was injured and taken to the hospital, where he was questioned by investigators, according to the BBC, which reported that authorities saw no signs of foul play. 

Vilks, 75, had been living under police protection since his Mohammad cartoon was published more than a decade ago, inciting death threats and a bounty being placed on his head by al Qaeda. 

The cartoonist’s residence was firebombed in 2010, and Vilks was the intended target of an attack in a 2015 meeting in Denmark that left one person dead.

While many Muslims believe any depiction of Mohammad is forbidden, Vilks insisted that his cartoon was not intended to provoke Muslims but to challenge political correctness in the world.