Sunday, April 15, 2012

Islamic terror suspects planned to attack event hosted by Danish Crown Prince

From The Telegraph, the Swedish edition of the Local and the Copenhagen Post

Four Islamic terror suspects planned to attack an event attended by Denmark's Crown prince to kill "as many as possible" in revenge for a Danish newspaper's publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, prosecutors alleged yesterday.

On the opening day of the trial of four men charged with terrorism at Glostrup Municipal Court, it emerged that the likely target of their plot was the 2010 Årets Fund, a high-profile sports awards ceremony. Among the attendees at the targeted event, held in the same building as the Copenhagen offices of Jyllands-Posten newspaper, was Crown Prince Frederik.
"But we don't think that the Crown Prince was the number one target," Prosecutor Henrik Plähn said. The terror suspects are accused of planning to carry out indiscriminate gun attacks in order to avenge Denmark's refusal to ban the publication satirical cartoons mocking the founder of Islam in 2005. Mr Plaehn also accused the four men, charged with terrorism and illegal possession of weapons of having links with Pakistan, an allegation, he said, would be proved during the trial which is expected to finish in mid-June.

The men – Munir Awad, Omar Abdalla Aboelazm, Mounir Ben Mohamed Dhahri and Sabhi Ben Mohamed Zalouti – are originally from Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Lebanon.

A machine gun with a silencer, a revolver and 108 bullets and reams of duct tape were among the items found in the men's possession. The four terror suspects, aged between 29-44 at the time of their arrest, have all pleaded not guilty through their lawyers.

Denmark's state security police (PET) has said the planned attack was modelled on a 2008 shooting spree in Mumbai, when 10 Pakistani gunmen killed 166 people in a three-day assault.

"It is our perception that an unknown number of people were to be killed by shooting," Gyrithe Ulrich, another Danish prosecutor. Security officials described the men as "militant Islamists with relations to international terror networks" in Pakistan's Waziristan region near the Afghan border.

The attacks were planned as a response to Jyllands-Posten’s decision to publish controversial drawings of the prophet Mohammed in 2005. The newspaper has been the target of several terror plots since the publication and the Danish government’s subsequent refusals to apologise for the drawings.

"This is a serious terror case and perhaps the most serious one we have ever had, as it came closer to being realized than previous ones," said Danish state attorney Gyrithe Ulrich to Sveriges Radio prior to the trial’s opening.

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