Copenhagen: A 28-year-old Somali was charged on Saturday with the attempted murder of a Danish cartoonist notorious for his drawing of the prophet Mohammed, and of a policeman, a court spokesman said.
He denied the charges before the judge of the court at Aarhus, northwest Denmark, put the hearing behind closed doors at the request of the prosecution.
"He was charged with double attempted murder," the spokesman said, and remanded in custody for four weeks, the first two of them in solitary confinement.
The man, who was shot and wounded by police as he was breaking into Kurt Westergaard`s home late yesterday, was brought into court at Aarhus on a stretcher wearing a hospital gown and covered with blankets, Ritzau news agency reported.
He had one arm bandaged, a leg in a splint and a towel over his face to avoid identification, media reports said, while describing him as bearded with a shaved head.
The accused, alleged by Denmark`s PET intelligence agency to be linked to Somalia`s radical Shebab Islamic movement and leaders of Al-Qaeda in east Africa, lives on the Danish island of Seeland, where the capital Copenhagen is located.
He is alleged to have forced his way into Westergaard`s house at Viby, south of Aarhus with an axe and a knife with the intention of killing him.
Bureau Report
