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Danish bomb plot suspects insufficient evidence { September 8 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/world/europe/08denmark.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/world/europe/08denmark.html
September 8, 2006
Danish Investigators Fear Evidence Is Insufficient to Hold 5 Suspects in Possible Bombing Plot
By DAN BILEFSKY, International Herald Tribune
ODENSE, Denmark, Sept. 7 — Danish investigators expressed concerns on Thursday that the evidence gathered of what is suspected of being a terrorist bombing plot, which Justice Minister Lene Espersen has called the most serious in the history of the country, could be too weak to hold five of the seven men who remain in custody.
Hans Jorgen Bonnichsen, a former operational chief of Danish intelligence, told the Danish radio broadcaster DR that the intelligence service faced a difficult challenge. While it had evidence of a potential attack, he said, it might have acted before it could be determined whether the evidence was sufficient to stand up in court.
For Danish investigators, the case recalls an incident in 1996, when three Egyptians were accused of planning to blow up a bridge, the Israeli Embassy and a train station in Copenhagen. Ultimately, the three were acquitted because of insufficient evidence, and the judge ordered the government to pay each of them $15,000 in compensation.
Hans Kjellund, a defense lawyer for the Egyptians, said the current case illustrated the growing challenge faced by intelligence services to act to prevent terrorist attacks.
“The legal challenge for prosecutors in a case like this is: do you have enough evidence to show that suspects intended to commit a crime or were the suspects in the realm of thinking rather than doing?” he said. “While intelligence services can’t afford to wait to prevent a terrorist attack, judicial authorities need to prove a crime was committed before they can act.”
It also emerged Thursday that, just 90 minutes before the police crashed through his door in a sweep aimed at foiling what was alleged to be a terrorist plot, one of the suspects wrote an e-mail message to the editor of the Danish newspaper Politiken in which he railed against anti-Muslim hysteria, the paper reported Thursday.
In the message, the suspect, a recent convert to Islam, cited the authors of a new book, “Islamists and the Naïve,” which compares Islam to Nazism and communism.
It was written by Karen Jespersen, a former interior minister from the Social Democrat Party, and her husband, Ralf Pittelkow, a columnist for Jyllands-Posten. It was that newspaper that provoked Muslim fury last year when it was the first to publish cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad.
“Yes, there is fanaticism in Denmark and you have to ask yourself why the Danes are so hostile to foreigners,” the letter says. “The answer is very simple for us Muslims living here,” it continued, before mentioning Ms. Jespersen and Mr. Pittelkow, who was an adviser to Poul Nyrup Rasmussen when he was prime minister.
“He supports ridiculing people,” the e-mail message said of Mr. Pittelkow.
The book has created a sensation in Denmark, in part because its authors are former leftist intellectuals who once advocated tolerance but now argue that anyone underestimating the threat posed by Islam to Denmark and the West is naïve.
Some have criticized the book for incendiary language that mimics the style of the far-right Danish People’s Party, which advocates a zero-tolerance approach to immigration, and contends that Islam is incompatible with Denmark’s liberal values. Ms. Jespersen and Mr. Pittelkow did not return phone calls on Thursday.
Asked in an interview in Politiken on Saturday how she could equate Islam with Nazism and communism, Ms. Jespersen responded: “We compare it to underline what kind of forces we are up against. It doesn’t matter how many or how few there are. The link between politics and religion makes Islam a totalitarian movement, and it is gaining ground in the Middle East and Europe.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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