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Danish Police Start Inquiry in Cartoonist Attack

OSLO — The Danish police have ransacked three apartments in an attempt to determine whether a 28-year-old immigrant from Somalia acted on his own initiative on Friday when he was suspected of trying to kill a newspaper cartoonist whose 2005 drawing of the Prophet Muhammad set off pitched riots among offended Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere.

“We seized computers, mobile phones, DVDs and literature, and all of that will be examined in order to find evidence of his motives and of course any names and addresses that might be of interest,” said Jorgen Ilum, commissioner of Denmark’s East Jutland police district.

The man, a Danish resident whose identity has not been released, used an ax to smash his way into the home of the cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, outside the city of Aarhus, the police said. Mr. Westergaard, 74, whose life had been threatened repeatedly as a result of the cartoon, took refuge in a specially reinforced bathroom and escaped injury.

Police officers arrived a few minutes later and subdued the intruder, who was charged with attempting to kill Mr. Westergaard and a police officer.

Also on Sunday, a Kenyan law enforcement official partly confirmed a report in the Danish newspaper Politiken that the suspect had been held by Kenyan authorities for seven weeks last summer in connection with a suspected plot against Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Nicholas Kamwende, the chief of the national antiterrorism police unit in Nairobi, said that a detained “Danish national” had been suspected of “affiliation to groups linked to terrorist activities” but officially was held because he lacked identity papers.

However he did not identify the suspect, and he said the agency had “no indication” of a plot against Mrs. Clinton, who visited Kenya in August.

Mr. Ilum, the police commissioner in Denmark, said his investigators would compare notes on Monday with the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, which reportedly had the suspect under part-time surveillance after his return to Denmark.

“Of course, we suspect his motives are linked with terrorism,” Mr. Ilum said. If that can be proved, he added, additional charges might be brought.

Two of the homes searched by the police over the weekend belong to relatives of the suspect and are in Aarhus, he said. The third, in Copenhagen, belongs to the suspect himself.

Reuben Kyama contributed reporting from Nairobi, Kenya.

Sign in to RecommendNext Article in World (17 of 26) » A version of this article appeared in print on January 4, 2010, on page A9 of the New York edition.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/

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