3 Suspects Arrested in Plot To Kill Danish Cartoonist

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Danish authorities yesterday arrested three people suspected of plotting a cartoonist's assassination for his depiction of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban that enraged Muslims two years ago.

Three of Denmark's largest newspapers said they would reprint the cartoon today to show they would not be intimidated by fanatics. It was one of 12 Muhammad cartoons published in 2005 and then again in 2006 that led to protests in Muslim countries.

Investigators said they foiled the plot in its early stages in a pre-dawn raid in the western Denmark city of Aarhus. The police intelligence agency, PET, said two Tunisians and a Danish citizen of Moroccan origin were arrested. "The case shows that, unfortunately, there are in Denmark groups of extremists that do not accept and respect the basic principles on which the Danish democracy has been built," Prime Minister Rasmussen said.

Yesterday's arrests were meant "to prevent a terror-related assassination of one of the cartoonists behind the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad," PET chief Jakob Scharf said. Investigators believe the plot had not advanced far enough to try the suspects.

Mr. Scharf said the 40-year-old Danish suspect faced a preliminary charge of violating a Danish terror law, but will likely be released after questioning. The two Tunisians will be expelled from Denmark, he said.

He did not name the intended target, but Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten said it was the paper's cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard. Mr. Westergaard, 73, drew one of the 12 Muhammad caricatures that were first published by the paper on September 30, 2005, and then reprinted by other Western media in early 2006.