Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said in 2023 that Sweden had gone into “battle-array for war on the Muslim world” by supporting “the criminal”, and that “all Islamic scholars agree that those who desecrate the Koran deserved the most severe punishment”.

Salwan Momika was facing four counts of agitating an ethnic group and a trial verdict had been due the day after his death

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Swedish police arrested five people on Thursday after an Iraqi anti-Islam campaigner was shot dead hours before a court verdict was due in a trial over his burning the Koran, as the prime minister expressed concerns over the killing's links to a foreign power.