Thread by @thetimes

The Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks spent 14 years under police protection, before dying with his two bodyguards when their car collided with a lorry this week

While treating the crash as an accident, police have also opened a murder investigation thetimes.co.uk/article/lars-v…

Authorities are pursuing the theory — with no evidence yet — that someone may have tampered with the car or forced it to swerve into oncoming traffic

For many individuals whose lives were permanently altered by their proximity to the artist, there is no closure

Vilks’s girlfriend, 'May' is devastated — but angry, too

Funding for his police protection had been cut back, and the conditions imposed on the couple had made their life together impossible after 2018, she complained

Vilks had survived at least two assassination attempts. One involved Colleen LaRose, an American who called herself “Jihad Jane”

She was jailed for 10 years for terrorism offences, including trying to kill Vilks in 2009

In 2015, Vilks escaped an attack in Copenhagen, when a gunman opened fire on a café where he was speaking

He had also been the target of various attacks, including a failed attempt to burn down his home. But his luck ran out on the E4 from Stockholm last Sunday night