Copenhagen: Four men were found guilty of “terrorism” over a plot to kill the staff of a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, that first published blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh).
Sahbi Ben Mohamed Zalouti, Munir Awad and Omar Abdalla Aboelazm—all Swedish citizens of Tunisian, Lebanese and Moroccan origin, respectively—and Tunisian national Mounir Ben Mohamed Dhahri had denied charges of terrorism though one pleaded guilty to illegal weapons possession, Reuters reported.
Prosecutors had charged that the four planned to “kill a large number of people” at the newspaper offices in Copenhagen when they were arrested on December 29, 2010.
The four, arrested in a joint Danish-Swedish police operation at the end of 2010, were acquitted by a Danish court on two charges of weapons possession for technical reasons, court officials said.
A machine-pistol with a silencer, a revolver, 108 bullets, 200 plastic handcuff strips and $20,000 were among the items found in the men’s possession when they were arrested, according to AFP.
The four all adamantly denied the terrorism charge, but Dhahri pleaded guilty to arms possession.
The paper was the first to print the set of a dozen cartoons lampooning Islam and the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) in 2005. The images touched of riots in Muslim countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia in 2006 in which at least 50 people died.
The court was set to hand down its sentence later Monday. Chief prosecutor Gyrithe Ulrich urged the court to jail Dhahri for at least 16 years and sought at least 14 years jail for Awad, Aboelazm and Zalouti.
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