Terror Suspects Detained in Denmark

In the early hours of Tuesday morning Danish police raided a dozen homes of Muslims in an immigrant suburb of Odense and arrested nine young men on charges of plotting terrorism. Later in the day seven of the suspects appeared for the court in a marathon meeting lasting from 3 p.m. till 3 a.m in the morning. The court only agreed on maintaining charges for two of the suspects, giving the police 72 hours to gather more evidence against the remaining five kept in custody. This time frame runs out today.




In the next 24 hours it remains to be seen whether charges will hold or the new Danish antiterrorism law less than four month old will be applied.

Danish police have a record of terrorism charges to be acquitted by the court. In 1996 in Aarhus was such a case ending in huge compensations to the accused.

The contributor is a native of the very town of the alleged crime. To him a smoking gun is missing. So far police have only been quoted for finding "ingredients which can be used in manufacturing of explosives". Maybe the police found a pack of fertilizer and a battery.



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[edit on 8/9/06 by khunmoon]

[edit on 8/9/06 by khunmoon]

[edit on 8/9/06 by khunmoon]

It appears that the Danish courts decided there was enough edvidence to keep all 7 of them.

The two main suspects were remanded in custody Wednesday, but the court at the time called for more evidence against the other five.

"The court today had to decide whether there is a strong suspicion" against the five, Prosecutor Erik Terp Jensen told reporters after the hearing, "and the court decided that there is."

www.iht.com...

There seems to be more than meets the eye here. The courts/police are being very tight lipped on the details. This is unusual given the leaks we normally see.

There is some information available though.

1. The police have been watching at least 4 of them for quite some time now.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Four young Muslims charged with supplying explosives for a planned attack in Europe were under surveillance by authorities for two years after they met with a radical Islamist leader in London, Denmark's former intelligence chief said Friday.

He said the cleric was Omar Bakri Mohammed, the leader of the now-disbanded radical Islamist group al-Muhajiroun, which gained notoriety for praising the Sept. 11 hijackers. Bakri, who now lives in Lebanon, is banned from returning to Britain, where he lived for 20 years.

www.washingtonpost.com...

2. The imam who helped start the "Cartoon War" (by showing fake mohammad cartoons), is involved.

Mohamad al-Khaled Samha,(AKA: Abu Bashar) the neighborhood's best-known imam, said he knew the suspects, whom he declined to name, and believed they would be released.

"I'm 100 percent sure that they will go free. They are very far from terrorists," he told The Associated Press in an interview.

"They are my neighbors," he said. "I see them in the supermarket, on the road and in the mosque sometimes on Fridays. They're Muslims, I pray with them."

apnews.myway.com...

3. The same imam, (Abu Bashar) is also tied to the failed German train bombing.

the links between the failed attacks and the Danish cartoons seem to go beyond that. Today Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet reported the news that one of the bombers, El Hajdib, was linked to the Danish imam Abu Bashar. According to the German BKA, when El Hajdib was arrested he was found in possession of a train ticket to the Danish city of Odense, where Bashar lives, and the cleric’s phone number. The BKA suspects that El Hajdib was supposed to hide in Odense with Abu Bashar's help before reaching relatives in Sweden.
counterterrorismblog.org...

4. And this report, from when the first 4 were arrested, just prior to the rest.

Friday, August 25, 2006
In October 2005, Danish police received tips that the four had ties to two men arrested in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on suspicion of planning a terror attack somewhere in Europe: Swedish national Mirsad Bektasevic, 19, and Abdulkadir Cesur, an 18-year-old Turkish national living in Denmark.

Police who raided the two men's Sarajevo apartment said they found a suicide bomber belt, explosives, firearms and other military equipment, as well as a videotape showing masked men asking for God's forgiveness. Bektasevic and Cesur have pleaded innocent.

After a 10-month investigation, the four suspects in Denmark were charged Thursday with helping provide weapons and explosives to Bektasevic and Cesur for the planned attack.
www.washingtonpost.com...

5. British intelligence suspects they are tied to a plot to bomb the White House.

A British police dragnet has raised suspicion that nine terrorist suspects arrested in Denmark and Bosnia are linked to a plan to attack the White House and other strategic targets in the United States.

British police became interested in one of the suspects after they arrested three men in London and found they had had email correspondence with a man living in Bosnia. The man living in Bosnia had been suspected of running a network that sought to draw alienated youths to the rebellion in Iraq.

Seven 16-20-year-olds are currently under arrest in Denmark along with two 18-year-old men in Sarajevo, one of Danish-Turkish heritage and the other from Sweden, in connection with the find of cache of weapons and explosives in Sarajevo.
www.cphpost.dk...

[edit on 9/9/06 by makeitso]

On Saturday this piece of information surfaced in a local newspaper.

In an alotment garden near Vollsmose, where the arrests were caried out, the Danish Security Inteligence Service (PET) on Tuesday noon in conjunction with the alleged terror case seized an unspecified amount of fertilizer. 10-12 police officers were in charge of the raid in the alotment society of Martinsminde, the local daily, Fyens Stiftstidende Saturday writes.

"Fertilizer are not just for plants to grow - it is also very suitable for the manufacture of bombs", expert chemist Mads Skak Jensen from the Danish Emergency Management Agency, department of Chemical Emergency, stated to the newspaper.

So far this news is only available in Danish. Translated by the contributor.

-khunmoon-

[edit on 9/9/06 by khunmoon]

A phial seized on September 5 at the home of one of the suspects held in an anti-terror swoop in Odense contains “a clear liquid consisting of a synthetic mix for the production of triacetone triperoxyde (TATP) and crystals consisting of TATP,” the paper said, quoting a laboratory analysis report.
projectdisaster.com...

Its an oddball, non-official, unconfirmed, strange, lone report.
Perhaps incorrect. Dunno.

Original report in Danish?

[edit on 9/16/06 by makeitso]

On 9/11/06 the incident was reported by a reliable news source.

Documents pertaining to the Vollsmose terror case found outside a testing laboratory indicate that police have bomb evidence

A confidential report pertaining to the Vollsmose terror case was found by passers-by this weekend outside a lab being used by police for evidence analysis, reported daily newspaper BT.

The documents indicated that a substance police found during their raid on the housing block last week was a homemade explosive, triacetone peroxide. The substance is common to suicide bombs in the Middle East and was also found in explosives used in the attacks on London's underground system last year.

The compound has no commercial value and is therefore crucial evidence for police. Seven suspects are being held in custody in the case.

What further indicates that a leak is in question is this report from the same news agency dated 9/13/06.

Just a few days after a confidential report on the Vollsmose terror case was found on the street, another turns up and costs a PET employee his job

An employee with the Police Intelligence Service (PET) resigned Wednesday after a second classified report on the Vollsmose terror case was found near a train station.

The document was apparently lost by the employee on his way to or from work. The paper included information about preparations for the Vollsmose raid in Odense last week and also contained one of the suspect's national ID number.

'It's deeply regrettable that someone could find these documents in a public place,' said Lars Findsen, PET's director general. 'The employee lost the paper at some point after the police action last week.'

Whole story

Now the minister of justice, Lene Espersen, is called for consultations by the opposition parties. Also being raised are political demands about high-nitrate fertilizers to be banned. This report has the story.

Consumers will be barred from buying nitrate-based fertilisers that can be used in homemade bombs


[edit on 16/9/06 by khunmoon]

This was my very first thread on ATS posted on the day I signed in. Being Danish and from the very same town it had some significance to me.

Now there's a ruling.

Denmark convicts men in bomb plot


Three men convicted. Of the originally nine arrested -- ...not too bad, a 30% score. I had expected they might have been acquitted all together, but the neo-con prospects just won the election (again) only two weeks ago. Obviously they couldn't rule otherways.

All the way through this case have had a smell to it. I have followed it in general, and what is distinct about it is, it is the first time a Danish court uses an agent provocateur as witness. Excactly the role of that agent is highly questionable, and the questionings of the trial has revealed that PET, the police intelligence, was dubious about his standing. They suspected him and operated him like a double agent. And that person was the crown witness of the prosecuter. The court had to take him as a reliable witness according to law, cause now we got freely enforced legislation modeled after the glorious patriot act of the USA.
IMO, a serious set-back for justice in Denmark.

Two got each eleven years --a sentence worse than many manslaughter sentencies in Denmark-- one got it for storing fertilizer in his garden, the other for in the course of playing 'the little chemist' to have manufactured trace amounts of TATP. Today in Denmark this is accountable for more than murder. The third one got four years for saying something on the phone you're not allowed to say.

If the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, the "thought-crime act" as just passed by US senate, should too get copied into Danish legislation I quit, I give up my citizenship for any hoola boola country, any banana state who will sell me a passport for a few thousand dollars. If only I could.