Police mull bodyguard for threatened Danish cartoonist

COPENHAGEN - A Danish cartoonist at the centre of the 2005 controversy over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed may need round-the-clock protection after he escaped an attack on his life, Danish security police said Sunday.

A Somali-born man, armed with an axe and knife, was arrested late Friday after breaking into Kurt Westergaard’s home near Arhus, western Denmark.

The 28-year-old was remanded in custody Saturday until the end of January on suspicion of attempted murder of Westergaard and a police officer alerted to the scene.

The man was shot and wounded in the hand and knee when he tried to attack a police officer.

The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) said Friday’s incident was a terrorism-related attack although it appeared the suspect acted on his own accord.

Westergaard has had bodyguards when moving outside his home, but the PET were “considering if there were needs to revise that” and offer round-the-clock protection, PET head Jakob Scharf told the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

According to the PET, the suspect has ties with the radical Islamist al-Shabaab militia and Al Qaeda in East Africa.

There were conflicting reports that the suspect was held in Kenya a few months ago on suspicion of being part of a plot to attack US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Politiken newspaper, quoting unnamed sources, Sunday reported that the man returned to Denmark in September as Kenyan police did not have sufficient evidence to link him to the plot.

The Danish ambassador to Kenya told broadcaster TV2 News that this was incorrect and instead was linked to problems with the man’s travel documents.

The 74-year-old cartoonist alerted police late Friday when the man, armed with an axe and knife, stormed into his home, shouting that he was seeking “revenge” and “blood”.

Westergaard sought refuge in a specially reinforced room during the attack, and told Danish media how he heard the assailant bashing at the door.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moller said Denmark would likely have to live with terror threats “for a long time. The terror threats will not disappear until Al-Qaeda disappears”, Moller told the Berlingske Tidende newspaper.

Westergaard’s controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban was one of 12 images published in September 2005 by Jyllands-Posten. The cartoons sparked outrage among Muslims and violent protests worldwide in early 2006.

In October, the US Justice Department said two people had been arrested and charged in Chicago in a plot to attack the Jyllands-Posten building and its employees.