Team News Riveting
Controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who flared up a dispute globally with blasphemous sketches of Prophet Muhammad, was killed in a car mishap near the southern town of Markaryd on Sunday.
Since the publication of the cartoons in 2007, the 75-year-old cartoonist had been living under round-the-clock police guard. He had a bounty put on his head and his house was fire-bombed.
According to police officials, he was travelling in a police vehicle that collided with a truck. Two police officers were also killed.
“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 on Monday. “Initially, there is nothing that points to anyone else being involved.”
Vilks was widely seen as the intended target. Vilks had said that the cartoons were not intended to provoke Muslims, but to challenge political correctness in the art world.
