Norway Prosecutor Files Terrorism Charges Against Three in Attack on Danish Newspaper Jyllands-Posten and Mohammed Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard
Remember the “Mumbai-Style” terror attack in late December 2010. Now, there is more.
Mikael Davud, David Jakobsen and Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak are charged with planning to carry out an assault using explosives on Danish paper Jyllandsposten. The charges also say they planned to shoot Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, author of the controversial Prophet Mohammed caricatures.
All the men were arrested last year in Oslo and Germany following a Police Security Service (PST) raid. Authorities suspected they had planned to bomb the Chinese Embassy, with one of the three trying to obtain Hydrogen Peroxide from a pharmacy. This failed due to PST intervention.
It is also believed the plotters are connected to al-Qaida, and the case has ties to the United States.
The three men arrived in Norway between 1999 and 2002. Mr Davud and Bujak remain in custody while Mr Jakobsen, who served as an informant for the PST, has been released.
None of the suspects admit their guilt, but face up to 12 years in prison if convicted.
The three men risk prison sentences of up to 12 years, Evanger said.
Investigators believe the plot was linked to the same al-Qaeda planners behind 2009 schemes to blow up New York’s subway and a British shopping mall.
An Associated Press investigation last year showed all three plots were thwarted after suspected operatives exchanged emails – sometimes poorly coded – in and out of Pakistan.
Davud, a 40-year-old ethnic Uighur from China, was charged with receiving explosives training at an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan and agreeing to blow up one of several offices of Jyllands-Posten in Denmark.
Bujak and Jakobsen are accused of joining the plot in 2009 and helping acquire bomb-making chemicals.
Police say they had the men under surveillance and even replaced a vital ingredient with a harmless liquid to ensure they would not succeed in building a bomb.
Davud and Bujak, a 38-year-old Iraqi Kurd, were also charged with plotting to shoot Westergaard.
Westergaard drew the most controversial of the 12 cartoons, featuring Mohammed with a lit fuse in his turban. He was the victim of a murder attempt last year and has received several death threats.
Davud and Bujak have been held in custody since their arrest and have both admitted they were planning an attack, although their versions have differed on who their target was, the first saying it was the Chinese embassy in Oslo and the second claiming it was Jyllands-Posten.
Jakobsen has denied any responsibility and is currently a free man. He became a police informant in November 2009 but still faced charges for his involvement in the plot before then.
All three suspects deny any links to al-Qaeda.
In Norway, plotting a terrorist act alone is not a crime. If at least two people are involved they can be convicted of conspiracy.
The trial is set to begin on October 31.
Here are the Mohammed cartoons:
