Danish police make arrests over cartoonist death plot
Tuesday, 12 Feb 2008 14:19
Danish police arrested three people in Aarhus this morning
Danish police have arrested three people suspected of plotting to kill one of the cartoonists behind drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.
The police said the arrests were made in a series of pre-dawn raids in Aarhus this morning "to prevent a terror-related murder".
Two of the suspects are Tunisian and will be held in custody until expelled from the country.
The third person is Danish of Moroccan origin, and will be released pending further investigation.
While it has not been formally confirmed who the target was, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's website claimed it was their cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
In a statement on the website Mr Westergaard said: "Of course I fear for my life when the police intelligence service say that some people have concrete plans to kill me.
"But I have turned fear into anger and resentment," he said.
In September 2005 Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's largest daily newspaper, published the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
Mr Westergaard's drawing was considered to the most controversial, featuring the prophet with a turban shown as a bomb with a lit fuse.
Demonstrations stemming from the cartoons led to Danish diplomatic offices in Damascus and Beirut being torched and dozens of people being killed in Nigeria, Libya and
Pakistan.
Mr Westergaard and his wife have since been placed under police protection.