Somali pleads innocent in Denmark cartoonist attack

A Somali man charged with trying to kill a Dane who caricatured the Prophet Mohammed pleaded not guilty to attempted murder on the first day of his trial Wednesday, insisting he had only aimed to scare the cartoonist.

"I was irritated and frustrated by his comments. I wanted to frighten him but not to kill him," Mohamed Geele, 29, told a packed court in the central Danish town of Aarhus, speaking calmly in Danish.

Westergaard locked himself inside a panic room and was unharmed in the attack.

The Somali, whose identity was only officially revealed Wednesday, had been set to appear before the district court but the hearing was moved to the larger Aarhus Appeals Court to fit in the throngs of reporters and other onlookers who braved tight security to follow the trial.

Geele, who is suspected of breaking into 75-year-old Kurt Westergaard's home on January 1 last year wielding an axe and trying to kill him, could face life in prison if found guilty on all counts: attempted terrorism, attempted murder, attacking a police officer and illegal arms possession.

Prosecutor Kirsten Dyrman told the court in Aarhus, Denmark's second largest city, that the defendant intended to kill Westergaard when he broke into the house. The crime should be viewed as terrorism because it was meant to "seriously frighten the population" and destabilize Denmark, Dyrman said.

Westergaard locked himself inside a panic room and was unharmed in the attack.

Geele’s lawyer, Niels Strauss, meanwhile told the packed court that "my client only admits to illegal arms possession and breaking and entering."

Geele, who Danish intelligence police say is linked to the Somali Islamist movement al-Shebab, insisted he had "bought the axe to help a friend cut down a tree."

Al-Shebab has declared allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda extremist network and controls most of southern and central Somalia.

"But I brought it with me to Aarhus because I was very angry with (Westergaard) and wanted to break down his door to talk with him," acknowledged the defendant, who appeared calm and collected before the court, wearing a black sweater, jeans and glasses.

Numerous death threats

According to Danish intelligence police, he is believed to be close to the Islamist movement al-Shebab, which has declared allegiance to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda extremist network and controls most of southern and central Somalia.

Westergaard has faced numerous death threats since the publication of his drawing of what appears to be the Prophet Mohammed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse.

It appeared in the Jyllands-Posten daily on September 30, 2005 along with 11 other cartoons of the Muslim prophet in what was meant to be part of a debate on self-censorship and freedom of speech.

The drawings sparked angry and even deadly protests across the Muslim world in early 2006 and again in early 2008, after numerous papers republished Westergaard's drawing following the unraveling of a plan to assassinate him.

Described himself as a "devout Muslim"

The defendant, who had an obvious limp from injuries he sustained during his arrest, described himself as a "devout Muslim" and said he decided to break into Westergaard's home after reading on the Internet that the cartoonist "was proud of the drawing and wanted to do more." He thought that "if I threaten and scare him, maybe he will behave better in the future."

On the night of January 1, 2010, the Somali "broke down the front door with an axe and destroyed the television set and computer in the living room, screaming in Danish that he was going to kill me because I had offended the Muslim prophet," Westergaard told AFP on the eve of the trial.

The cartoonist, who was alone at home at the time with the five-year-old daughter of a friend, rushed into a bathroom that had been fortified and transformed into a panic room to "seek safety and call the police."

When police arrived, Geele came out wielding his axe and a knife. He was shot twice and placed under arrest.

At the opening of Wednesday's trial, the prosecutor played recordings of Westergaard's two frightened calls to police that night for the nine jury members.

"He is breaking down the door! It's very violent. You must come immediately," the cartoonist screamed, insisting: "You must come now or I won't survive. He is going to kill me!"

Before Geele took a train and taxi from his home in Copenhagen to Westergaard's house in Viby, near Aarhus, he had "shaved his entire body and his clothes smelled strongly of perfume," the prosecutor said, hinting that the man had performed a "ritual" often carried out by those who want to die as martyrs.

She also said police had found a computer at the Red Cross centre where Geele worked that he had used to conduct research on axes and to locate Westergaard's home.

The cartoonist has faced numerous death threats since the publication of his drawing of the Prophet Mohammed.

It appeared in the Jyllands-Posten daily on September 30, 2005 along with 11 other cartoons of the Muslim prophet, and sparked angry and even deadly protests across the Islamic world in early 2006.

Westergaard, who is scheduled to testify Thursday, told AFP Tuesday he thought his attacker would receive "a heavy prison sentence."

"I do not want to excuse his actions, but I would really like to understand how he got to that point. Maybe he was manipulated," the cartoonist suggests, insisting more than five years after his drawing first appeared that it does not represent Mohammed.

"I made a caricature of a terrorist who evokes Islam and who abuses it, as some would say," said Westergaard, who today is closely watched over by bodyguards.

"I have got used to this situation. But I am not a prisoner. I can go where I want, thanks to my guardian angels," he said.

Geele's trial is set to last for nine days and the verdict is expected around the first week of February.