First they came for the writers…

Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt pays respects Sunday Feb. 15, 2015, at the Copenhagen Synagogue for the victims for the Saturday night’s shootings in Copenhagen. Photo by AP

Police say Copenhagen gunman had criminal record, gang past

By Jan M. Olson and Karl Ritter, Associated Press
February 16, 2015

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The suspected gunman killed by police after shooting attacks against a free speech event and outside a Copenhagen synagogue was 22 years old and had a background in criminal gangs, police said Sunday.

[He has since been named as Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, who was recently released from prison.]

The suspect was born in Denmark and had a criminal record, including violence and weapons offences, Copenhagen police said in a statement. They didn’t release his name.

A Danish film-maker attending a panel discussion on blasphemy was killed in the shooting Saturday at the free speech event and a member of the Scandinavian country’s Jewish community was killed outside the synagogue. Five police officers were also wounded in the shootings.

Police believe the suspect carried out both shootings alone but were investigating whether he had received help from others.

“Denmark has been hit by terror,” Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said. “We do not know the motive for the alleged perpetrator’s actions, but we know that there are forces that want to hurt Denmark. They want to rebuke our freedom of speech.”

Jens Madsen, head of the Danish intelligence agency PET, said investigators believe the gunman was inspired by Islamic radicalism.

“PET is working on a theory that the perpetrator could have been inspired by the events in Paris. He could also have been inspired by material sent out by (the Islamic State group) and others,” Madsen said.

Islamic radicals carried out a massacre at the Charlie Hebdo newsroom in Paris last month, followed by an attack on Jews at a kosher grocery store, taking the lives of 17 victims.

Earlier Sunday, at least two people with handcuffs were taken out by police from an Internet cafe in Copenhagen, Danish media reported. Police spokesman Steen Hansen told The Associated Press that “the action was part of the police investigation” but declined to give further details.

The Danish Film Institute said the 55-year-old man killed at the free speech event was documentary filmmaker Finn Noergaard.

The institute’s chief Henrik Bo Nielsen said he was shocked and angry to find out Noergaard was gunned down while attending a discussion on art and free speech.

Noergaard directed and produced documentaries for Danish television, including the 2004 “Boomerang boy” about an Australian boy’s dreams to become a world boomerang champion and the 2008 “Le Le” about Vietnamese immigrants in Denmark.

Denmark’s Chief Rabbi, Jair Melchior, identified the Jewish victim as Dan Uzan, 37, a longtime security guard for the 7,000-strong community. He was guarding a building behind the synagogue during a bat mitzvah when he was shot in the head. Two police officers who were there were slightly wounded.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decried the attack and said his government plans to encourage a “massive immigration” of Jews from Europe.

“Again, Jews were murdered on European soil just because they were Jews,” Netanyahu said at the start of his Cabinet meeting Sunday. “This wave of attacks is expected to continue, as well as murderous antisemitic attacks. Jews deserve security in every country, but we say to our Jewish brothers and sisters, Israel is your home.”

Other leaders also condemned the attacks, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU President Donald Tusk,

“The shootings in Copenhagen are an appalling attack on free speech and religious freedom,” Cameron said. “Two innocent people have been murdered simply for their beliefs and my thoughts are with their loved ones and all those injured at this tragic time.”

The first shooting happened before 4 p.m. Saturday when the gunman used an automatic weapon to shoot through the windows of the Krudttoenden cultural center during a panel discussion on freedom of expression featuring a Swedish artist who had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad. The artist, Lars Vilks, was whisked away unharmed by his bodyguards, but Noergaard was killed and three police officers were wounded.

The attack at the synagogue occurred hours later, shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday.

About four hours later, the shooter was confronted by police as he returned to an address that they were keeping under surveillance. Investigators described him as 25 to 30 years old with an athletic build and carrying a black automatic weapon. They released a blurred photograph of the suspect wearing dark clothes and a scarf covering part of his face.

Oliver Larsen, 26, who lives in a building above the street where the suspect was shot dead, said he was awoken at 5 a.m. by the sound of shooting.

“I looked out of the window to see what was going on and I saw a lot of policemen and a guy lying on the street; he was probably dead,” Larsen told the AP.

Vilks, a 68-year-old artist who has faced numerous death threats for depicting Muhammad as a dog in 2007, told The AP he believed he was the intended target of the first shooting, which happened at a panel discussion titled “Art, blasphemy and freedom of expression.”

“What other motive could there be? It’s possible it was inspired by Charlie Hebdo,” he said, referring to the Jan. 7 attack by Islamic extremists on the French newspaper that had angered Muslims by lampooning Muhammad.
The depiction of the prophet is deemed insulting to many followers of Islam. According to mainstream Islamic tradition, any physical depiction of the Prophet Muhammad — even a respectful one — is considered blasphemous.

While many Muslims have expressed disgust at the deadly assault on the Charlie Hebdo employees, many were also deeply offended by its cartoons lampooning Muhammad.

The attacks took place two days after Denmark and its partners in the European Union agreed to dramatically boost cooperation in the counter-terrorism field as a result of the January attacks in Paris, which claimed the lives of 17 victims.

The EU’s law enforcement agency, Europol, said Sunday it was in contact with Danish authorities and proposing its help to find out as much as possible about the Copenhagen gunman and whether he was acting alone or in concert with others.

“We are offering our expertise and capabilities from our anti-terrorist unit including access to our databases,” said Europol spokesman Soeren Pedersen.

Danica Kirka in London, Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem, John-Thor Dahlburg in Brussels and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this story.

A woman lays flowers outside the main synagogue in Copenhagen, following two fatal attacks in the Danish capital. Photograph: Claus Bjorn Larsen/AFP/Getty Images

Copenhagen killings: bewildered Europe struggles to defend freedom of speech and religion

The internet helps provide a breeding ground for extremism of all types as the west tries to address the legacy of intervening in Iraq and the Arab Spring

By Simon Tisdall, The Guardian
15 February 2015

The bare facts of the Copenhagen killings are not in dispute. But the reasons why a European capital and its citizens have again fallen victim to a merciless act of extreme Islamist violence are less easy to fathom, and certainly more contentious.

Already the shockwaves are spreading outwards, like a poison cloud carrying hate to the furthest reaches of a frightened and bewildered continent.

It seems clear the gunman was no professional. He fired at random into the crowd at the Krudttønden cafe. He failed to get inside the building and casualties were relatively few. Fleeing the scene, he hired a taxi home, which is how police tracked him and shot him dead – but only after a second murder at Copenhagen’s main synagogue on Krystalgade.

Danish security officials suggest a possible link with the Islamic State terrorists in Syria and Iraq, but have so far produced no evidence. There will be speculation about connections with other groups, such as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. But it appears more likely that the unidentified killer, who police said was Danish-born, was acting on his own.

If so, there may be similarities with the Islamists who attacked Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket in Paris last month. The Kouachi brothers, perpetrators of the Hebdo attack, may have been trained by al-Qaida in Yemen, but this has never been confirmed.

What is certain is that they were “home-grown” jihadis who were radicalised during their formative years in Paris. Chérif Kouachi, for example, was enraged by the abusive treatment of Muslim prisoners at the US-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The Copenhagen gunman may turn out to have a similar background, and likewise to have been a lone loose cannon. No terrorist group has claimed responsibility. But the febrile backdrop against which this individual’s crime took place is only too evident: a shooting war with Islamists across large swaths of the Muslim world, growing Islamophobia in western Europe, ever greater polarisation over Israel-Palestine – especially since last year’s Gaza conflict – and a linked rise in antisemitism.

All this mayhem and misery is reported and commented upon daily in Europe’s mass media and social media. The internet has become a noticeboard and recruiting ground for bigots of every type. Significantly, Danish police raided an internet cafe on Sunday that may have been used by the gunman.

The resulting unseen, online radicalisation of vulnerable, unbalanced or misguidedly idealistic young individuals is an intelligence nightmare. The security services have no persuasive answers. You cannot erect a roadblock or a firewall for ideas. Which is why attacks such as that in Copenhagen, even though the suspect was already known to police, seem impossible to prevent. And why more copycat attacks in Europe must be viewed as almost inevitable.

The Copenhagen fallout has to be contained somehow or a violent backlash could feed the existing crisis over how best to defend Europe’s cherished values of freedom of speech and religion.

David Cameron and Barack Obama lined up on Sunday to defend these values. They might be more usefully employed in acknowledging that many current problems can be traced back to the Anglo-American destabilisation of post-2003 Iraq and to the west’s connivance in the suppression of Arab spring pro-democracy uprisings.

In the short term, calls for increased security for frightened Jewish communities, including in Britain, are wholly understandable. Muslim communities deserve similar consideration. But the rash appeal by Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, for all of Europe’s Jews to up sticks and emigrate to Israel is unhelpful. Running away is not the way to respond to intimidation. As one rabbi noted, to heed Netanyahu would be to give in to the terrorists.

Dan Uzan, the Jewish guard who was killed. Photo by David Charter

‘Dan stopped the terrorist with his body’

Mother of girl whose bat mitzvah was held at Copenhagen synagogue where terrorist killed Jewish guard says ‘they will not scare us away just like they won’t scare Israelis away.’

By Itamar Eichner, Ynet news
February 16, 2014

“We feel like Dan stopped the terrorist with his body. He was our hero even before this incident. He was a kind-hearted man, a good soul. Dan and the other guards who were there are the true heroes of this incident,” said Mita Bentow, the mother of Hanna – who was celebrating her bat mitzvah at the Copenhagen synagogue when Dan Uzan was shot to death outside.

Hanna Bentow, who celebrated her bat mitzvah at Copenhagen synagogue

Danish director Finn Noergaard was killed in the attack and four police officers were wounded. Several hours later the terrorist opened fire on the main synagogue in Copenhagen, where Uzan was killed. Police shot and killed the terrorist on Sunday morning. Danish police said Sunday evening that the terrorist was 22-year-old Omar El-Hussein, who had a history of violence.

“We were dancing and rejoicing when suddenly the second Jewish guard entered and told us to turn off the music,” recalled Mita. “We didn’t know there were shots fired outside. Afterwards he entered again and yelled: ‘Everybody down.’ We quickly ran to the secured room downstairs, which is the bathroom, and sat there for two hours until the Danish officers came to our rescue.”

The mother said they were downstairs with 15 children who were without their parents: “I was responsible for them.” Her husband received a walkie-talkie from the Jewish guard and was notified of Uzan’s death.

Main synagogue in Copenhagen, attacked by terrorist on Saturday night (Photo: Reuters)

The hardest moment was when my husband told me Dan was killed. I was standing with my eight-year-old boy and I couldn’t bare my emotions. My husband told me to calm down so that the kids won’t panic, and I decided to walk out with a smile on my face,” she remembered.

“At the end of the night I finally got home and the first thing I did was call Dan’s sister; we cried together on the phone,” she said after the emotional night.

Mita is an Israeli citizen who made aliyah in the ’90s and later returned to Denmark. “Because we have our parents and our family in Denmark we chose to stay here, because life is good in here and we are also Danes. We are very proud of that,” she said.

This is our home and no one has the right to say that this is not my home. Denmark is my country. My family has lived here for a 100 years. The terrorists will not scare us away just like they won’t scare you from Israel. I say thank you very much, Bibi, I love Israel – but Denmark is my home.”

Bentow said the central concern for her was the safety and future of her children. “But we will march on and not let them scare us. I don’t know how Dan’s amazing family can deal with this. They are not alone. We are with them. We feel the love and affection of the Danish people and our brethren in Israel.”