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

An Iraqi refugee and anti-Islam campaigner was shot dead in Sweden hours before he was due to receive a court verdict following a trial over burning the Koran, and five people were arrested over the shooting on Thursday.