Four charged over Danish newspaper 'massacre plot'

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InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

COPENHAGEN -- Danish prosecutors have charged four men for "attempted terrorism" over plans to kill the staff of a newspaper that carried controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, a judicial statement said Friday.

The four men, all residents of Sweden and arrested on December 29, 2010, had planned to "kill a large number of people" at the Jyllands-Posten daily, it said.

Judge Elisabet Michelsen said the trial would start on April 13. The accused are a 44-year-old Tunisian, a Swede of Lebanese origin aged 29, a 30-year-old Swede, and a Swede of Tunisian origin aged 37.

Jyllands-Posten published a dozen cartoons in 2005 of the Prophet Mohammed that triggered violent and sometimes deadly protests around the world.

Three of the four men arrived in Copenhagen on December 29, 2010 in a rented car from Stockholm. They planned to storm the office of the newspaper, located in the heart of the capital, and "kill as many people as possible".

Danish police who had been collaborating with their Swedish counterparts and had been wiretapping the men, arrested them just after hearing them say they were "going to" the newspaper office.

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