A man accused of attacking the artist whose 2005 cartoon outraged the Muslim world arrives in court in Denmark on a stretcher Jan. 2, 2009.
ERNST VAN NORDE, POLFOTO/AP PHOTO
Video: Prophet Muhammad cartoonist attackedCOPENHAGEN–A Somali man with suspected Al Qaeda links was rolled into a Danish court on a stretcher Saturday, charged with two counts of attempted murder after breaking into the home of the Danish artist whose Prophet Muhammad cartoon outraged the Muslim world four years ago.
The suspect, who allegedly broke into the house late Friday armed with an axe and a knife, was shot twice by a police officer responding to the scene.
Efforts to protect the artist – 74-year-old Kurt Westergaard – were immediately stepped up, as he was moved to an undisclosed location.
Jakob Scharf, head of Denmark's PET intelligence agency, said the 28-year-old suspect might have attacked spontaneously.
"It seems that he acted alone, and maybe it was a sudden decision," Scharf told Danish broadcaster TV2.
Westergaard, who has been the target of several death threats since depicting the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban, has been under round-the-clock protection since February 2008.
When he heard someone trying to break into his home in Aarhus, 200 kilometres northwest of Copenhagen, he pressed an alarm and fled to a specially made safe room. His 5-year-old granddaughter was also in the house at the time.
Officers arrived two minutes later and tried to arrest the assailant. He threatened the officers with the axe, and one officer then shot him in the hand and knee, Preben Nielsen of the Aarhus police said.
He said the man's wounds were serious but not life-threatening.
Westergaard could not be reached for comment, but he told his employer, the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, that the assailant shouted "Revenge!" and "Blood!" as he tried to enter the bathroom where Westergaard had sought shelter.
"It was scary. It was close – really close," he said, according to the newspaper's website.
The Somali man, whose name cannot be released because of a court order, was accompanied by a lawyer. He arrived at the court in Aarhus from the hospital where he is being treated, and denied the charges.
"He will be in custody for four weeks, and in isolation for two (of those)," said Chief Supt. Ole Madsen in Aarhus.
Defence lawyer Niels Christian Strauss said he had urged his client to remain silent to allow more time to examine the evidence.
Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen called the attack "despicable."
"This is not only an attack on Kurt Westergaard but also an attack on our open society and our democracy," he said in a statement.
In 2005, Jyllands-Posten had asked Danish cartoonists to draw Muhammad as a challenge to a perceived self-censorship. Westergaard and 11 other artists did so.
Danish and other Western embassies in several Muslim countries were torched in early 2006 by angry protesters who felt the cartoons had profoundly insulted Islam.
Westergaard's cartoon was viewed as the most provocative.
The Somali man had won an asylum case and received a residency permit to stay in Denmark, Scharf said.
He called the Friday attack terror-related.
"The arrested man has, according to PET's information, close relations to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab and Al Qaeda leaders in eastern Africa," Scharf said.
In Somalia, Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, a spokesman for the Somali group al-Shabab, denied the man was a member of the group, but supported his alleged attack on the cartoonist.
"We welcome the brave action he did," Rage said. "It was a good and brave step taken by that Somali man against the criminal cartoonist – we liked it."
Westergaard was also the subject of an alleged assassination plot.
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