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Tahawwur Hussain Rana's office, which says Immigrant Law Center in Chicago - Source: Reuters -
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Two Chicago men have been arrested and charged with plotting to
attack a Danish newspaper whose cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed -
including one with him wearing a bomb in a turban - led to deadly
protests by Muslims, the US Justice Department said.
The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 published
the controversial cartoons of Mohammad, the founder of Islam, which
were subsequently republished elsewhere and sparked protests that
killed several dozen people.
US authorities accused David Headley, 49 and a US citizen, of
hatching the plot in late 2008 to attack the paper and said he
posted to an internet discussion group that he felt disposed
towards violence because of the published cartoons.
Dubbing the scheme the Mickey Mouse Project, Headley travelled
twice to Denmark this year where he visited two offices of the
Danish newspaper - in Copenhagen and Arhus - taking video and
posing as a potential advertiser on behalf of a Chicago business,
First World Immigration Services.
That business is owned by Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48 and a Canadian
citizen, who was arrested on October 18 at his home in Chicago on a
charge of conspiracy for discussing potential targets with Headley
and helping him make travel plans, the Justice Department
said.
Headley also travelled to Pakistan where he met with a leader of a
group with ties to al Qaeda, Harakat-ul Jihad Islami, and
communicated with members of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba
about plans to attack the newspaper, the US government said.
He was arrested on October 3 as he was about to fly from Chicago to
Pakistan.
He also had a ticket to Copenhagen from the United States on
October 29, though a Danish official said they did not believe an
attack was imminent.
"This is an investigation that is ongoing. We will continue to
cooperate very closely with the FBI but also with security services
in a number of other countries to curb the threat," Jakob Scharf,
head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET), told a
news conference in a Copenhagen suburb.
The US Justice Department said there was no imminent danger in the
Chicago area and that the arrests were unrelated to other recent
terrorism cases, including one involving an Afghan man arrested in
Colorado, Najibullah Zazi, for plotting to detonate bombs in the
United States.
Scaled back attack plan
In an interview with FBI agents after being arrested in Chicago,
Headley said that he proposed scaling back the plot to kill the
cultural editor and the cartoonist rather than attack the
newspaper's building, an FBI affidavit said.
He also told them that he had worked with Lashkar-e-Taiba
previously and received training from them.
The group has been accused of last year's assault on Mumbai and
was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United
States.
Lawyers for Headley were not immediately available for comment
while Rana's lawyer, Patrick Blegen, said his client adamantly
denies the charges and eagerly awaits his opportunity to contest
them in court and to clear his and his family's name.
Blegen said he would seek his client's release on bond on Wednesday
at a hearing. If convicted, Headley faces life in prison and Rana
faces up to 15 years in prison.
The Justice Department said its investigation was also
continuing.
The re-publication of the cartoon in several newspapers sparked
violent protests in Muslim countries in 2006, prompting the
newspaper to apologize, though the Danish government defended the
paper's right to freedom of expression.
The editor of the Jyllands-Posten, Jorn Mikkelsen, said on Danish
TV2 news that employees were in shock.
"We had a feeling that this case had faded away but now we must
realize that the threat against us is even bigger today than
before," Mikkelsen said.
The newspaper was following closely the instructions of the PET,
but would not back down from its principles in the face of the
threat, he said.
"You know our position on the freedom of speech, and in that fight
we are in the front line," Mikkelsen said.
