Charges after planned attack

THREE men suspected of planning a deadly attack on a Danish newspaper appeared yesterday before a court which charged them with an attempted act of terrorism and possession of weapons, officials said.

Police detained four men in Denmark and one in Sweden on Wednesday on suspicion of plotting an assault on offices of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish daily that outraged Muslims in 2005 with cartoons of Prophet Mohammad.

The three — one Tunisian and two Swedish citizens — pleaded not guilty to the charges, Lykke Sorensen, an official of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service PET, told reporters at Glostrup courthouse.

On Wednesday, Danish security police chief Jakob Scharf had said that the arrests prevented an “imminent terror attack” that aimed “to kill as many as possible” of the people present at the Copenhagen offices of the newspaper.

Scharf described the plot as a “Mumbai-style” attack, referring to the 2008 attack in the Indian city in which 10 Pakistani gunmen killed 166 people in a three-day raid on landmarks including two hotels and a Jewish centre.

Police brought the three suspects to a court in the Copenhagen suburb of Glostrup, which ordered that they be held in custody for four weeks pending more investigations.