Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, who desecrated copies of the Holy Qur’an last year, has reportedly been found dead in Norway.

Radio Genoa reported in a post on social media platform X on Tuesday that the 37-year-old anti-Islam Iraqi man had been found dead.

But further confirmation was yet to come.

“Those who announced Momika’s death with over 1 million impressions deleted the tweet. We are waiting for further confirmation,” it said.

Momika, who gained global notoriety for his sacrilegious act of burning the Quran, had recently moved to Norway from Sweden.

In June 2023, Salwan Momika stomped on the Qur’an before setting several pages alight in front of Stockholm’s largest mosque. The insult to the Muslim holy book was made under the authorization and protection of the Swedish police.

The incident, coinciding with the start of the Muslim Eid al-Adha and the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, drew the anger of Muslims from across the world.

Following the incident, millions of Muslims across various countries took to the streets to condemn the burning of the Islamic sanctities in Sweden. 

Sweden has repeatedly permitted Qur’an burning in recent years. In January last year, a Swedish-Danish right-wing extremist burned a copy of the Qur’an near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.

While Sweden had said it has no plans to make sweeping changes to freedom of speech laws following several acts of desecration of the Muslim holy book, many Muslim countries have regarded the blasphemous acts as instances of hate-mongering and inclination towards aggression that abuse the principle of free speech.

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