Denmark: Terror trial begins

More in English on the Copenhagen Post.

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The Danish Security Service, PET, had made it clear from the start that the suspect in the Glasvej terrorism case had contact with al-Qaeda.  And when the judicial process started Sunday in the Glostrup court, the prosecution painted a picture of the only suspect as a radicalized young man, who had come home from Pakistan with plans for a terror attack.

22 year old HK came back home on May 30th last year from the Pakistani area of Waziristan and thereby started off the entire case.  The police think that he had spent in all two and a half months in Pakistan.  Waziristan borders to Afghanistan and the authorities do not really have any influence.  Therefore the area is seen as a place where hunted terrorists can find a safe haven and where militant Muslims run koran schools and training camps.
 
The police were lucky to have to produce deleted pictures on HK's mobile phone showing him in the company of men with automatic weapons, mortars and shoulder missiles.  According to the prosecutor he acknowledged that he had been in the Red Mosque in Islamabad in Pakistan and that there he had prepared a copy of a bomb manual that was alter found hidden in a pillowcase in his apartment in Copenhagen.

After his return home, HK made contact with people in Pakistan several times.  People who described him as the sheikh's man, and which people had big expectations of him.  HK will answer about those conversation when he'll be questioned Thursday.

When the PET started tapping his apartment, they microphones caught him sitting on the floor, fumbling with something and singing "accept my last regards, I'm on my way to a martyr attack.  God is great."

PET claims that the man's radicalization had taken place over a few years.  In 2005 he taped himself on his mobile phone together with two friends playing out the execution of an supposed American, a ghastly looking rubber mask that with screams and much ado was beheaded - a mask which was later found in his apartment.  

While the video was played in court, HK sat with a boyish smile, while his co-suspect, AT, looked more under pressure.

Source: Kristeligt Dagblad (Danish)

See also: Denmark: Danish Muslims training in al-Qaeda camps, planning attack against Denmark, Denmark: Three charged in Glasvej terror case, Copenhagen: Terror arrests, Denmark: Connections between recent terror plots

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