Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who stirred worldwide controversy in 2007 over his depiction of Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog, has been killed in a car accident. The accident took place on Sunday near the southern town of Markaryd that killed the 75-year-old artist, Swedish police said in a statement.
Vilks had lived under police protection ever since the drawings were published. He was travelling in a police car that collided with a truck. The car, which had left Stockholm and was heading south, veered into the path of the truck and both vehicles burst into flames.
Two police officers were also killed, while the truck driver was flown to a hospital with serious injuries.
Police said they did not know why the car drove into the wrong lane but they were investigating whether a tyre might have exploded.
The car transporting Vilks had puncture-proof tyres, according to the police. However, exploded tyre remains were reportedly found on the road.
“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,” the police statement said.
“Initially, there is nothing that points to anyone else being involved.”
Born in 1946 in Helsingborg in southern Sweden, Vilks worked as an artist for almost four decades and rose to fame after producing several controversial works.
He was largely unknown outside of Sweden before 2007 before he drew sketches of the Prophet Muhammad with a dog’s body. In 2010, two men tried to burn down his house in southern Sweden, while in 2014, a woman from the US state of Pennsylvania pleaded guilty in a plot to kill him.
Vilks had said that the cartoons were not deliberately intended to provoke Muslims but to challenge the boundaries of political correctness in the art world.
