On the opening day of the trial of four men charged with terrorism at Glostrup Municipal Court, it emerged that the likely target of their plot was the 2010 Årets Fund, a high-profile sports awards ceremony.
Among the attendees at the targeted event, held in the same building as the Copenhagen offices of Jyllands-Posten newspaper, was Crown Prince Frederik.
“There are things in the investigation that suggest that this event was the target,” the senior prosecutor, Henrik Plæhn, said in the Glostrup courtroom today, according to Jyllands-Posten. “But it should be emphasised that the Crown Prince was not the target.”
When the four defendants in the case – three Swedish citizens and one Tunisian – were arrested in the Copenhagen suburb of Herlev in December 2010, they were in possession of an assault rifle, ammunition, a silencer and plastic strips.
Police believe the group intended to kill "as many as possible” in their attack.
The attacks were planned as a response to Jyllands-Posten’s decision to publish controversial drawings of the prophet Mohammed in 2005.
The newspaper has been the target of several terror plots since the publication and the Danish government’s subsequent refusals to apologise for the drawings.
One of the illustrators, Kurt Vestergaard, who drew the image of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, was attacked in his home, and several other terror plots against the newspaper have also reportedly been foiled by the domestic intelligence agency, PET.
The four men on trial face life sentences. They have all pleaded “not guilty” to the charges. A decision is expected in mid-June.
