Kurt Westergaard is dead: illustrator of controversial Mohammed caricature has died

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Kurt Westergaard (2010): The draftsman was under police protection

Photo: Preben Hupfeld / picture alliance / dpa

The Danish draftsman Kurt Westergaard is dead. His controversial Mohammed caricature had sparked protests in numerous countries and was ultimately the cause of the bloody attack on the editors of the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris.

Westergaard died after a long illness at the age of 86, as his family announced to the Danish newspaper Berlingske on Sunday.

A caricature drawn by Westergaard showing the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban in the newspaper »Jyllands-Posten« led to anti-Danish protests and violence in several Muslim countries in 2006 as a series of caricatures.

"Charlie Hebdo" printed the caricature in 2012 - three years later two Islamists killed twelve people in an attack on the editorial staff of the satirical magazine.

Westergaard worked for the »Jyllands-Posten« since the mid-1980s.

In the last years of his life, the draftsman was under police protection - like several other people who had to do with the printing of the controversial Mohammed caricature.

In 2010, police arrested an attacker armed with a knife in Westergaard's house who wanted to kill the artist.

whale / AFP