Kurt Westergaard Mohammed Cartoon, The suspect in a break-in at the home of a controversial Danish political cartoonist appeared in court Saturday, charged with attempted assassination, the Danish Intelligence and Security Service said.Danish police say they shot a man Friday night he tried to enter the Aarhus, Denmark, home of Kurt Westergaard, who is known for his controversial depictions of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.The suspect was shot in the right leg and left hand and hospitalized after the incident, police said. Video showed him appearing at court strapped onto a stretcher on Saturday.
Authorities did not identify the suspect because the judge decided it would be illegal to disclose his name, said Chief Superintendent Ole Madsen with the East Jutland Police. Authorities said he was a 28-year-old Somali who has legal residency in Denmark and lives in Sjaelland, near Copenhagen.
The suspect was charged with the attempted assassination of Westergaard and a police officer on duty, the intelligence service said. He was allegedly armed with an ax and a knife.
The judge ordered the suspect held for four weeks while the investigation proceeds.
Madsen said the man is the only suspect in the case, and he would not say whether police were investigating anyone else.
Police had no indication that an attack was being planned on Westergaard, Madsen said, though the intelligence service said the suspect had been under surveillance because of his terrorist links.
Police said the suspect managed to crack the glass front door of Westergaard’s home. A home alarm alerted police to the scene at 10 p.m. (4 p.m. ET), and they were attacked by the suspect, authorities said.
Danish intelligence officials said the suspect is connected to al-Shabaab, al Qaeda’s ally in east Africa.
The incident “once again confirms the terrorist threat that is directed against Denmark and against cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, in particular,” said Jakob Scharf, spokesman for the Danish Security and Intelligence Service.
Westergaard’s caricature of Mohammed — showing the prophet wearing a bomb as a turban with a lit fuse — sparked an uproar among Muslims in early 2006 after newspapers reprinted the images months later as a matter of free speech. The cartoon was first published by the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten in September 2005.
At the time, Westergaard said he wanted his cartoon to say that some people exploited the prophet to legitimize terrorism. However, many in the Muslim world interpreted the drawing as depicting their prophet as a terrorist.
Over the years, Danish authorities have arrested other suspects who allegedly plotted against Westergaard’s life.
After three such arrests in February 2008, Westergaard issued a statement, saying, “Of course I fear for my life after the Danish Security and Intelligence Service informed me of the concrete plans of certain people to kill me. However, I have turned fear into anger and indignation. It has made me angry that a perfectly normal everyday activity which I used to do by the thousand was abused to set off such madness.
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