Runar Søgaard (born 27 June 1967 in

Kongsvinger Kongsvinger () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Glåmdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Kongsvinger. Other settlements in the municipality include Aus ...

Hedmark Hedmark () was a county in Norway before 1 January 2020, bordering Trøndelag to the north, Oppland to the west, Akershus to the south, and Sweden to the east. The county administration is in Hamar. Hedmark and Oppland counties were merged int ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

) is a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

leadership trainer, life-coach, motivational speaker and former

preacher A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as ...

. He was earlier married to singer

Carola Häggkvist Carola Maria Häggkvist (; born 8 September 1966), commonly known simply as Carola, is a Swedish singer and songwriter. She has been among Sweden's most popular performers since the early 1980s and has released albums ranging from pop and disco ...

. In 2012 his business Vinger Consulting AB was threatened with bankruptcy following a lawsuit by On Strategies LLC.

Activism

In April 2005 he created some reaction during a speech in Stockholm, by saying that the Islamic prophet

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...

had been a

pedophile Pedophilia ( alternatively spelt paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty a ...

. This led to some condemnation and protests. During the same sermon he also made disparaging remarks about

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

and Siddharta. Søgaard received threats from radical

Islamists Islamism (also often called political Islam or Islamic fundamentalism) is a political ideology which posits that modern states and regions should be reconstituted in constitutional, economic and judicial terms, in accordance with what is c ...

. Author and columnist

Jan Guillou Jan Oskar Sverre Lucien Henri Guillou (, ; born 17 January 1944) is a French-Swedish author and journalist. Guillou's fame in Sweden was established during his time as an investigative journalist, most notably in 1973 when he and co-reporter Pe ...

at the Aftonbladet news paper called for calm and wrote "it would be of great harm for Sweden's Muslims if Søgaard was harmed".

Legal problems

In November 2014, Søgaard was convicted for a third time of violating accounting laws, and sentenced by Nacka district court to two months of prison. He served his two-month sentence, by wearing an

ankle monitor The ankle, or the talocrural region, or the jumping bone (informal) is the area where the foot and the leg meet. The ankle includes three joints: the ankle joint proper or talocrural joint, the subtalar joint, and the inferior tibiofibular joi ...

. In 2019 he was convicted for tax evasion. In 2021 he lost in appellate court and was sentenced to one year and eight months in prison. As of 11 June 2021, he is planning to appeal to the Supreme Court. according to Søgaard's lawyer.

Personal life

From 1990 to 2000 Søgaard was married to the successful Swedish singer

. Together they have a son, Amadeus, born in 1998. He married for a second time in 2008 and has two sons in that marriage.

References

1967 births Living people People from Kongsvinger Norwegian emigrants to Sweden Norwegian critics of Islam Norwegian prisoners and detainees Prisoners and detainees of Sweden Life coaches {{Sweden-bio-stub