COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A Danish court on Thursday declared a Somali man guilty of terrorism for using an ax to break into the home of a Danish cartoonist who had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad.
The 29-year-old defendant entered Kurt Westergaard’s home in the northwestern town of Aarhus on New Year’s Day in 2010. The cartoonist locked himself inside a panic room and was unharmed.
Westergaard’s drawing was one of 12 cartoons of Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper in September 2005, triggering violent protests across the Muslim world.
“I am an old, peaceful man and I am not vindictive but I am very satisfied,” Westergaard told The Associated Press. “I’ve never been in doubt that he was a terrorist who wanted to kill me. He was a holy warrior yelling and shouting as he was hammering the ax on the bathroom door.”
When the Somali man broke into Westergaard’s house, the cartoonist rushed inside the bathroom — reinforced with a metal-plated door to serve as a panic room — and alerted police.
During the trial, the defendant, who cannot be named under a court order, said he wasn’t planning to kill Westergaard but just wanted to scare him.
The Aarhus city court sided with prosecutors and labeled the attack an act of terror. It also found the man guilty of assaulting a police officer but acquitted him of attempted murder for throwing the ax at police when they confronted him in Westergaard’s h… >>>
