Denmark Trial Begins For Men Plotting Mumbai-Style Terrorist Attack Targeting Danish Crown Prince and Mohammed Cartoons Newspaper

One of the dozen cartoons dating back to 2005 from Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed.

Four men pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges in a Copenhagen court on Friday after prosecutors accused them of plotting to carry out an attack on the offices of Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten while the crown prince was scheduled to visit. Three of the men were mid-eastern immigrants residing in Sweden who were arrested by police in that country in late 2010- a few days before they were scheduled to carry out their attack in Copenhagen.

Prosecutors have charged the three men along with an accomplice originally from Tunisia with terrorism and weapons charges. One defendant pleaded guilty to weapons charges but not guilty to the terrorism charges. Although Prosecutor Henrik Plaehn said there was no apparent indication that Crown Prince Frederik was specifically targeted for attack, he was scheduled to attend an event at the Jyllands Posten headquarters when the attack was supposed to take place. Speak

ing to the court on the first day of the trial, prosecutor Henrik Plaehn said the four men — three Swedish citizens and one Swedish resident — had been arrested hours before an appearance by Crown Prince Frederik at the Politiken newspaper in Copenhagen.

The heir to the Danish throne was to distribute an annual sports award and Plaehn said prosecutors believed that terrorists had intended to launch a violent attack on the ceremony, which eventually took place as scheduled.

Plaehn also said the alleged terrorists were linked with Pakistan, a point he would try to prove during the trial.

The 2005 Jyllands Posten Mohammed cartoons caused an uproar throughout the Islamic world, resulting in widespread protests and sporadic attacks against Danish embassies. In January 2010, a Somali man with ties to that Islamic Al Shabaab militia was shot in the leg and wrist by police as he broke into the Copenhagen home of Kurt Westergaard, one of the cartoonists. Although Westgaard was unarmed, he had time to grab his 5 year old granddaughter before the two of them locked themselves in a panic room.

Although Islam supposedly prohibits any kind of depiction of Mohammed, there are a number of depictions of Mohammed ranging from 13th century Persian manuscripts to a 2001 episode of South Park. None of these representations became controversial until after the 2005 Jyllands Posten backlash.