UPDATE, 29 December 2011
The 41-year-old man that police suspect of setting a car bomb on Christmas Eve pleaded not guilty in a Randers court on Wednesday. He is being jailed until January 23 on a charge of attempted manslaughter. It has also emerged in press reports that the arrested man is the cousin of the father who, along with his three-year-old daughter, managed to escape the car bomb uninjured. Police, however, would not confirm that relationship.
ORIGINAL STORY – published on 27 December 2011 at 13:11:27
A 41-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a Christmas Eve car bomb, Eastern Jutland police announced.
The explosion took place in the early evening of Christmas Eve while the vehicle was parked in Vilhelm ThomsenÂ’s Square in the Jutland town of Randers. A man and his three-year-old daughter were in the vehicle at the time, but managed to escape unharmed. A fragment from the bomb flew through a basement window in a nearby building, but police reported difficulties in finding eyewitnesses to the blast.
Although police would not say what brought them to the arrested man, they did say that the man was previously known to police. The 41-year-old is being charged with attempted manslaughter.
According to police, the arrested man and his targeted victims are related.
“There is a family relationship between the two men,” Michael Weiss of the Eastern Jutland Police told Jyllands-Posten, adding that while police didn’t have a concrete motive yet they “have an idea about it”.
