STOCKHOLM, May 15 The house of Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who angered Muslims by drawing a blasphemous cartoon in 2007, was targeted in an arson attack overnight, police said on Saturday.
“The damage is rather minor, part of the front is blackened and some windows were broken,” Scanie district police spokeswoman Sofie Oesterheim said. “The fire went out by itself.”
Police found glass bottles containing petrol inside the house which was empty at the time of the attack.
“The case is being handled as arson,” police said in a statement.
“Probably I can't live there any more,” Vilks said after the attack
The attack comes days after the cartoonist was beaten while giving a lecture at Uppsala university.
In 2007, Swedish regional daily Nerikes Allehanda published Vilks' cartoon to illustrate an editorial on the importance of freedom of expression. It prompted protests by Muslims in the town of Oerebro, west of Stockholm, where the newspaper is based.
Governments of Egypt, Iran and Pakistan made formal complaints.
An Al Qaeda front organisation then offered $100,000 to anyone who murdered Vilks — with an extra $50,000 if his throat was slit — and $50,000 for the death of Nerikes Allehanda editor-in-chief Ulf Johansson.
Four men and three women, all Muslims originally from Morocco and Yemen, were arrested in southern Ireland in March over an alleged plot to assassinate him.
An American who called herself “JihadJane,” was charged, also in March, with plotting to kill the Swedish cartoonist and using the Internet to enlist co-conspirators.—Agencies
