Imams not charged for role in Mohammed cartoon case

A Danish prosecutor said today that a group of imams cannot be charged for travelling to the Middle East to seek support against a Danish newspaper after it published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The drawings, featured in the Jyllands-Posten daily in September 2005, triggered attacks on Danish embassies and protests across the Islamic world, which many Danes blamed on Muslim clerics.

The demonstrations came weeks after five imams, based in Denmark, had travelled to the Middle East and prompted more than 100 complaints against the group for allegedly inciting acts of terrorism, making threats and treason.

But, Prosecutor Birgitte Vestberg said she found no evidence that the imams had sought “hostilities against Denmark” or had any reason “to suspect that the reported persons have violated the penal code.”

Kasem Ahmad, a spokesman for the imams, said he was “very satisfied by this decision.

“Anything else would have been a disaster for the imams and their image.”