Danish cartoonist 'attack' foiled

Danish cartoonist 'attack' foiled

Danish police surrounded Westergaaard's home after he raised the alarm [AFP] Danish police have shot and wounded an axe-wielding Somali man who tried to break into the home of a cartoonist whose 2005 drawings of Prophet Muhammad outraged Muslims around the world. Intelligence authorities said the 28-year-old suspect, armed with an axe and knife, had attempted to enter the home of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard in the eastern city of Aarhus late on Friday. Westergaard, whose 5-year-old granddaughter was in the home on a sleepover, sought shelter in a specially made safe room when the suspect broke a window of the home, Preben Nielsen of the Aarhus police said. Michael Larsen, a police spokesman, said that authorities arrived at the house minutes after receiving an alarm alerting them to the intruder. "[The authorities] found a person and he attacked the police with an axe and a knife. He was shot in the leg and the hand and he is in hospital [now]," he told Al Jazeera . The suspect's wounds were reportedly not life threatening. 'Ties to al-Shabab' Larsen said police officials are treating the incident as attempted murder, both of Westergaard and a police officer. The man, who's name has been withheld as part of Danish privacy laws, was to be charged on Saturday. Officials from the Danish security and intelligence service, Pet, said the suspect, a Danish resident, had close ties to the Somali group, al-Shabab. "The attempted murder of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard is linked to terrorism," the agency said in a statement. "The person arrested ... has close links with the Somali terrorist organisation al-Shabab as well as with the heads of al-Qaeda in east Africa." Controversial cartoons Westergaard has been under police protection since his work appeared among a dozen cartoons published in the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005. The drawings triggered violent protests a few months later in a number of countries around the world, and again when they were republished in 2008. Protesters felt the cartoons had profoundly insulted Islam, which generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, favourable or otherwise. Several dozen people were killed during the riots at the time as angry crowds attacked Danish embassies around the world.