Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard poses in Aarhus in this September 2006 file photo.
Posted on 01/02/2010 2:00:44 PM PST by NYer
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – A Somali man armed with an axe and suspected of links with al Qaeda broke into the home of a Danish cartoonist whose drawings of the Prophet Mohammad caused global Muslim outrage and was shot and wounded by police.
Hours later, the 28-year-old was stretchered into court on Saturday and denied charges of trying to kill Kurt Westergaard.
The Somali also denied trying to murder a police officer at Westergaard's home in the town of Aarhus late on Friday after he broke into the house armed with a knife and an axe, police said.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Go figure.
Catholic Ping
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From the initial reports I’d assumed the break-in artist with a knife and an axe was a salesman for Tulip pork products or Tuborg beer.
A larger version of the page from the Jyllands-posten, with explanations and translations of all the cartoons here.
Some are funnier than others. I like the police lineup in the middle.
My personal favorite is the one with the black band across the eyes of .... is that an imam or Mohammed? Can’t tell with the black band ;-)
Look, guys. It really isn't that hard to maintain security here in the West. To the extent that Muslims are disproportionately prone to attempts to infiltrate and attack - on the individual or small-group scale - American and other Western societies, we deny them access. All immigration (except for the persecuted Christian minorities) from Islamic countries should be halted immediately. All immigrants currently in these countries should be deported immediately. Native-born citizens of Muslim persuasion should be the ones getting the screenings at airports.
Sounds hard? Not really. It wasn't that long ago (pre-1965, to be exact) that the US itself had immigration quotas that were far more discriminatory than that, and for all the wrong reasons to boot! Western Europe had better think long and hard right now. In the meantime, the US should refuse entry from all Muslim countries for all people but diplomats - with a close eye being kept on them, too. If those countries don't like it...tough. Saudi Arabia, for example, has massive restrictions on just visits - never mind immigration - from non-Muslims. Mere presence of "infidels" in Mecca means death to them. These guys are familiar with the concept, then! They should have no objections to our new-found discriminatory policies that can't be dismissed as rank hypocrisy.
We should drill our own oil and find other ways to create the energy we need. Then we'll have absolutely no use for these people, and can completely isolate them economically and travel-wise. If they hate us so much, let them solve their own agricultural, medical and technological problems completely cut-off from the West. Not a hair of their heads will be harmed by us (as much as I despise these people, I'm not really into turning the entire Middle East into shocked glass, either; just get out of their part of the world and leave them be). When Islam withers on the vine of its own fanaticism, and reverts to near-Stone Age technology and population levels, then we'll see about helping these people again.
In the meantime, get these people out of Europe and the US! If the politicians had even cartilage forming their spines, work would already be underway toward that goal right now.
But, but, but - Janet thinks he’s a “lone wolf”... ( maybe a right winger - or worse: a vet...)
What he's really thinking....
American Muslims, a pig, bacon or something.
What do you expect if you you're married to a dog that looks like this?
That’s a dog? I looks like GoatDogPig.
/mark
>”That’s a dog? I looks like GoatDogPig.”
Related to Al Gore, no doubt.
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