Rasmus Paludan, leader of the far-right "Stram Kurs" party in Denmark, is on trial in Sweden after publicly burning the Quran.
Paludan’s trial opened in the Swedish city of Malmö on Monday but he refused to attend the court on the grounds that his life could be in danger as Malmö is a center for Muslim immigrants.
Instead, Paludan appeared before the judges via video link from an undisclosed location in Sweden.
The prosecution in Sweden accuses Paludan of "incitement against an ethnic group," as well as "causing insult to an ethnic group," after he burned the Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm in January 2023.
A year before that, Paludan held a series of conferences in large cities in Sweden which he used, according to the Swedish prosecution, for "incitement against Arabs and Africans."
The punishment for the crimes Paludan is accused of are imprisonment of up to six months or a large fine. Paludan is the first person to stand trial in Sweden for burning the Quran.
The prosecution in Sweden stated that "Today, October 14, the main hearing begins in the district court in Malmö in the case in which a 42-year-old man was charged with two offenses of incitement against an ethnic group and insult. The events took place in April and September 2022 in Malmö."
Following the burning of the Quran, a diplomatic conflict broke out between Sweden and Muslim countries around the world, and the level of alert in the country was raised to the highest for fear of revenge attacks.