Copenhagen - A Danish court on Thursday
declared a Somali man guilty of terrorism for using an axe to break into
the home of a Danish cartoonist who had caricatured the Prophet
Muhammad.
The 29-year-old defendant entered
Kurt Westergaard's home in the northwestern town of Aarhus on New Year's
Day in 2010. The cartoonist locked himself inside a panic room and was
unharmed.
Westergaard's drawing was one of
12 cartoons of Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper in September
2005, triggering violent protests across the Muslim world.
During the trial, the defendant,
who cannot be named under a court order, said he wasn't planning to kill
Westergaard but just wanted to scare him.
The Aarhus city court sided with
prosecutors and labelled the attack an act of terror. It also found him
guilty of assaulting a police officer but acquitted him of attempted
murder for throwing the axe at police when they confronted him in
Westergaard's home.
A sentence was expected on Friday.
Prosecutor
Kirsten Dyrman had argued the defendant intended to kill Westergaard
and the crime should be viewed as terrorism because it aimed to
“seriously frighten the population” and destabilise Denmark.
The defendant decided to break
into Westergaard's home after reading on the internet that the
75-year-old Dane “was proud of the drawing and wanted to do more”. -
Sapa-AP