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TERRORISM

Suspects planned to slit journalists’ throats

The men from Sweden currently being held in Copenhagen on suspicions of planning a terror attack against the Jyllands-Posten newspaper planned on slitting the journalists' throats, police wiretaps reveal.

Suspects planned to slit journalists' throats

The goal of the attack was to shoot and kill as many people as possible within 20 minutes, according to recordings made by Danish security service PET and published on Monday in the Ekstra Bladet newspaper, according to Danish news agency Ritzau.

The three men traveled to Denmark during the evening of December 29th. They then met in an apartment on Mörkhöjvej in the Herlev neighbourhood near the Danish capital to discuss how they would attack the Jyllands-Postens newspaper.

In a joint prayer, one of the men said, “When the unfaithful are gathered, tie them up and cut their throats.”

Their goal was to shoot and kill as many as possible in a 20-minute time span. Following the prayer, the left the flat, but were then arrested by police. During a search of the premises, PET found automatic weapons, silencers, and heavy duty tape.

Last Thursday, the court in Glostrup decided that the three men from Sweden arrested in Denmark, Munir Awad, a 29-year-old Swede born in Lebanon, 30-year-old Swede Omar Abdalla Aboelazm and 44-year-old Tunisian national and Swedish resident Mounir Dhahri, should remain in solitary remand.

On Monday, the Attunda District Court north of Stockholm renewed a remand order for Sahbi Zalouti, a 37-year-old a Swedish citizen of Tunisian decent, who was arrested in Stockholm and believed to have been involved in planning the attack.

All four suspects deny involvement in planning any terror activities.

In 2005, the Jyllands-Posten newspaper published twelve caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, sparking outrage throughout much of the Muslim world. Several Muslim extremists offered rewards to anyone who killed those responsible for the cartoons.

BREAKING

Swedish prosecutors upgrade Almedalen knife attack to terror crime

Prosecutors in Sweden are now treating the murder at the Almedalen political festival as a terror crime, with the country's Säpo security police taking over the investigation.

Swedish prosecutors upgrade Almedalen knife attack to terror crime

In a press release issued on Monday evening, the Swedish Prosecution Authority, said that the 32-year-old attacker, Theodor Engström, was now suspected of the crime of “terrorism through murder”, and also “preparation for a terror crime through preparation for murder”. 

Engström stabbed the psychiatrist Ing-Marie Wieselgren last Wednesday as she was on her way to moderate a seminar at the Almedalen political festival on the island of Gotland. 

Although he was a former member of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement, police said his motive seemed to be to protest against Sweden’s psychiatry services, who he felt had treated his own mental illness badly. 

The release gave no details as to why the 32-year-old was now being investigated for a more serious crime, but terror expert Magnus Ranstorp told the Expressen newspaper that the shift indicated that police had uncovered new evidence. 

READ ALSO: What do we now know about the Almedalen knife attack? 

“The new crime classification means that they’ve either found a political motive for the attack which meets the threshold for terrorism, and that might be a political motive for murdering Ing-Marie Wieselgren,” he said. “Or they might have discovered that he was scouting out a politician, or another target that could be considered political.” 

Engström’s defence lawyer said last week that his client, who he described as disturbed and incoherent, had spoken in police interrogations of having “a higher-up target”. 

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