Danish Court Releases One, Keeps Three In Custody Over Terror Plot

Security and Intelligence Service chief Jakob Scharf

Three suspects have been remanded in custody by a Danish court in connection with what police say was a foiled plot to attack a newspaper in Copenhagen.

Danish media reports identified the three men as a Tunisian, a Swede, and a Swedish national born in Lebanon.

Another man, an Iraqi asylum seeker, was released due to an apparent lack of evidence.

The four men were arrested on December 29 for allegedly plotting what Danish police called a plan to "kill as many people as possible" at the offices of "Jyllands-Posten," a daily that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that caused outrage in the Muslim world.

A fifth suspect, a Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin, was detained in Sweden.

Jakob Scharf, the head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, said the planned rampage could have been similar to the 2008 terrorist attack in the Indian city of Mumbai that left 166 people dead.

"The investigation we have performed in following the suspects make us believe that the attack was planned to be carried out before January 1," Scharf said.

And after evaluating the evidence that we have received here at the police in Copenhagen, especially the machine guns, we think that they were planning to kill as many [people] as possible."

Scharf said more arrests were possible.

compiled from agency reports