THE INDEPENDENT: Three men were yesterday arrested in Denmark accused of plotting to murder a cartoonist, two years after a dozen cartoons lampooning Islamic fundamentalism sparked violent demonstrations around the world.
The target was said to be Kurt Westergaard, 73, a staff cartoonist on Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons. Westergaard's drawings depicted the Prophet Mohamed with a bomb-shaped turban and a burning fuse.
Two Tunisians and a Danish man were arrested before dawn in Aarhus, Denmark's second city and the home of the newspaper. It also has a large community of Arabs and Turks.
Police said they arrested the men while the plot to kill Westergaard was still in the planning stage. The chief of the Security and Intelligence Service, Jakob Scharf, said the arrests came after a long period of surveillance. They were intended, he said "to prevent a terror-related assassination of one of the cartoonists behind the cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed".
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Prime Minister, said: "Unfortunately... there are in Denmark groups of extremists that do not acknowledge and respect the principles on which Danish democracy is built. In Denmark, we have freedom not only to think and talk, but also to draw." Three arrested for plot to kill Mohamed cartoonist >>> By Peter Popham
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