Author of controversial Muhammad cartoon died in traffic accident | Lars Vilks had drawn the prophet with the body of a dog

Lars vilk, the Swedish cartoonist who target of an attack after making a caricature of the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog, died in a traffic accident with the two policemen guarding him.

Swedish police reported the death of the 75-year-old cartoonist on Sunday evening in an accident on the E4 motorway in the southern municipality of Markaryd in southern Sweden, when collided with a truck going the wrong way.

“It is investigated like any traffic accident. As there are two police officers involved, an investigation has been opened by a particular section of the prosecution,” said a local police spokesman, although than exclude that it is an attack.

Vilks was traveling in a police vehicle which, according to witnesses to the event, was traveling at high speed, passed a security barrier and then collided with the truck. Both vehicles caught fire after impact and the truck driver was hospitalizedthe Expressen newspaper reported.

“That the person we have protected and two colleagues have died in this tragedy is inconceivable and terribly sad,” said Carina Persson, head of the regional police.

In 2007, Vilks published the Muhammad cartoon, which was widely repudiated in the Islamic world. Al-Qaeda and Iraq (AQI) had offered a reward of $ 100,000 for the murder of the artist.

On February 14, 2015, a month after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris, a young dane of Palestinian origin opened fire on a debate on freedom of expression in Copenhagen where Vilks was present.

The cartoonist and the French ambassador were not injured, but a 55-year-old Danish filmmaker was killed in the attack.

Hours later, the assailant killed a guard at the Copenhagen synagogue and was killed the next day by local police.