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Danish Muhammad Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard
The Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard testified in the trial of Mohamed Geele today.
Testifying in a terrorism trial, Kurt Westergaard said he feared he would be “slaughtered” by the 29-year-old intruder who stormed into the house on New Year’s Day, 2010.
“He was like a religious, insane young man. I believed he entered the house as a holy warrior who wanted to kill an infidel,” Westergaard told the court in Aarhus, Denmark’s second-largest city.
Westergaard locked himself inside a panic room and escaped the attack unharmed.
The defendant, who cannot be named under a court order, told the court as the trial opened Wednesday that he just wanted to scare the cartoonist and didn’t intend to hurt him.
Westergaard said that was untrue, calling the defendant a “madman” as well as a “cowardly liar.”
Yeah, this moron enters someone’s home wielding an axe, hurls it at a police officer and it is presumed he just wants to scare the occupant.
A verdict in this trial is expected in early February.
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Danish Muhammad Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard
Kurt Westergaard’s, the Danish Cartoonist made famous by his depiction of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb on his head, attacker, Mohamed Geele, went to trial today.
A 29-year-old Somali man charged with trying to kill the cartoonist behind the most controversial Danish Prophet Mohammed caricature went on trial Wednesday in the central town of Aarhus.
The man, named in court as Mohamed Geele, could face life in prison if convicted of the charges of attempted terrorism, attempted murder, attacking a police officer and illegal arms possession.
The hearing was transferred to a larger court due to the number of journalists covering the case.
On January 1 last year, the suspect broke into the home of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard — who had drawn the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb-shaped turban — wielding an axe and saying he wanted to kill him.
Westergaard, now 75, rushed into a bathroom that had been fortified and transformed into a panic room to “seek safety and call the police.”
Police shot the man twice and wounded him before placing him under arrest.
Since his arrest the Somali has denied any wrongdoing, but according to Danish intelligence police, he is believed to be close to the Shebab Islamist movement, which has declared allegiance to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network and controls most of southern and central Somalia.
The trial is set to last nine days and the verdict is expected in the first week of February.
Mohamed Geele has denied the charges of attempted murder and terrorism.
Kurt Westergaard is expected to testify tomorrow under heavy security.
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Danish Muhammad Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard
You remember the story about the axe-wielding Somali who busted into Westergarrd’s home.
Danish police intelligence said they believed the “attempted assassination … is terror related” and accused the man, who was not named, of having links with Somalia’s al-Shabaab militant group as well as al Qaeda militants.
The cartoonist, 74, pushed a panic button, fled to a safe room and was unhurt when police arrived. His grand-daughter was in the house during the attack. Police could not confirm reports he had tried to break down the safe room door with the axe.
Westergaard, who in 2005 depicted Prophet Mohammad with a bomb in his turban, has been under police protection since his caricatures of the Prophet led to death threats.
The Somali man appeared in court on a stretcher with a hand and leg in plaster casts due to gunshot wounds from a police officer who had narrowly dodged the axe thrown at him by the intruder who was trying to evade arrest, police said.
The accused did not speak in court, but denied the charges through his lawyer.
The Security and Intelligence Service PET, a department of the national police, said in a statement: “It is PET’s impression that the attempted assassination of the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard is terror related.”
The man, the PET said, “has close relations to the Somali terror organization al-Shabaab and al Qaeda leaders in East Africa, and he is also suspected of having been involved in terror-related activities during his stay in East Africa.”
It also accused him of involvement in a terror-related network with links to Denmark, where he has a residence permit.
Well, this week the 75 year old cartoonist will face the Somali terrorist who attempted to murder him on New Years Day in 2010 – a year ago.
Westergaard and his granddaughter were unharmed.
“I got away. But he’s the real victim, who is likely going to sit behind bars for quite a while and will have enough time to think through what happened,” Westergaard told AP this week about the intruder, a 29-year-old Somali man charged with terrorism and attempted murder.
The defendant, who cannot be named under a court order, denies the charges, his lawyer Niels Christian Straus said. He declined to say what his client was doing at Westergaard’s house, saying he’ll explain it as the trial begins at the city court in Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city.
If convicted of terror, the defendant could face life in prison, although such sentences are generally reduced to 16 years under Danish law.
Westergaard’s security was ramped up even further after the break-in. Police temporarily moved him and his wife from their house in Aarhus. He’s now permanently escorted by earpiece-wearing bodyguards from PET, the Danish security service.
They are sure to accompany him to the court hearings, which are expected to draw large crowds. Westergaard is scheduled to testify on Thursday.
He said he was glad that the trial was finally getting started, so he could get on with his life, even though the infamous cartoon will forever be a part of it.
“The drawing will follow me into my retirement home and later to my tomb,” Westergaard said.
Here is the famous drawing:
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Offices of the Jyllands-Posten Newspaper which published the Muhammed Cartoons
An imminent terrorist plot against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten who published the infamous Muhammed Cartoons was foiled today.
The Danish intelligence agency said Wednesday that it had arrested five men suspected of an “imminent” terror plot against the Danish newspaper that ran controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.
The arrests come only a couple weeks after central Stockholm was rocked by two explosions that Swedish police have deemed a terror attack. The plots in the two Scandinavian countries are unusual because the region has been largely removed, until now, from the terrorism concerns that grip much of Western Europe.
Three of the men linked to the plot in Denmark are Swedish citizens and one of the five men arrested was arrested in Sweden, the New York Times reported. The men are not connected with the attack in Sweden, in which only the bomber was killed.
he men arrested in Denmark are a 44-year-old Tunisian, a 29-year-old Swede born in Lebanon, a 30-year-old Swede, and a 26-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker. The man arrested in Sweden was a 37-year-old Swede with Tunisian roots, Agence France-Presse reported. The Copenhagen Daily reports that the arrests stem from collaboration between Danish intelligence and Swedish law enforcement in a long-term surveillance operation.
The cartoons, published in 2005 in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, featured caricatures of the Prophet, which are considered blasphemous by most Muslims and prompted anger and violent rioting in some Muslim countries.
The men planned to kill as many as possible in the building housing the newspaper, the Copenhagen Daily reports.
The New York Times account of the “Mumbai-style” attack is here.
This is not the first time the newspaper or Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist who drew the Muhammed Cartoons. Remember the Somali who was linked to Radical Islamic al-Shabab and al Qaeda who tried to assassinate Westergaard with an axe?
And, the attack in Sweden may have been linked to another controversial caartoon.
…the e-mail threat connected to the attack references Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist who drew caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog in 2007 in the Swedish newspaper Tidningarnas Telegrambyra, the Monitor reported.
“Now, your children — daughters and sisters — will die like our brothers and sisters and children die,” the recording said, according to the Times. “Our actions will speak for themselves. As long as you do not end your war against Islam and the insult against the prophet and your stupid support for that pig Vilks.”
Of course, there was security in the building just as Westergaard had a “panic room” installed in his residence.
The Jyllands-Posten building was already under high security before the arrests, said Lars Munch, the director of the newspaper’s corporate owner, on the newspaper’s Web site. He called the plot “appalling” and said the newspaper was cooperating with Danish police in their investigation.
Prime Minister Loekke Rasmussen of Denmark told reporters that he was “shocked” by the attack.
“Regardless of today’s event, it remains my conviction that terrorism must not lead us to change our open society and our values, especially democracy and free speech,” he said.
And, here are the cartoons that have created this “EXCUSE” for terrorist activities.
And, all of this for what?
Cartoons of Muhammad
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Danish Muhammad Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard
Kurt Westergaard is retired now but continues to draw honors for freedom of speech.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the bravery of a Danish cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Muhammad at an award ceremony honoring his achievements for freedom of speech.
In her speech praising illustrator Kurt Westergaard, “who has had to fear for his life since the publication of the cartoons in 2005,” Merkel emphasized Wednesday that media freedom is an important element of rights in Europe.
“It does not matter if we think his cartoons are tasteful or not, if we think they are necessary and helping or not,” Merkel said at the ceremony in the city of Potsdam. The question, she said, was, “Is he allowed to do this? Yes, he is.”
There have been at least three attempted attacks on the 75-year-old Westergaard or his newspaper, the Danish the Jyllands-Posten, since he and 11 other artists angered Muslims around the world by creating the Muhammad cartoons four years ago. Protesters in Muslim countries have torched Danish and other Western embassies.
Westergaard’s cartoon, which he said took 45 minutes to draw, was considered by many Muslims the most offensive of the 12. He has rejected calls to apologize, saying poking fun at religious symbols is protected by Denmark’s freedom of speech.
The cartoon:
Of course, not everyone was pleased.
Merkel’s appearance at the award ceremony drew criticism from Muslim groups, who perceived it as an endorsement of Westergaard’s cartoon. Aiman Mazyek, general secretary of Germany’s Muslim Council, told public radio Deutschlandradio that Merkel is honoring the cartoonist who sullied “our Prophet … and thereby all Muslims.”
Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, rejected the criticism and said Merkel’s message was to underscore the importance of freedom of speech.
Westergaard continues to live under police protection.
Tags: Kurt_Westergaard, Muhammed_Caricatures
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