up date on Somali ax man found guilty in attack on cartoonist
COPENHAGEN — A Somali man was sentenced to nine years in prison yesterday for breaking into the home of a Danish cartoonist who had caricatured the Prophet Mohammed.
The Aarhus city court ruled that Muhideen Mohammed Geelle, who had been convicted of terrorism on Thursday, should be expelled from Denmark after serving his sentence.Defense lawyer Niels Christian Strauss said he would appeal the conviction and sentence.Geelle, 29, entered Kurt Westergaard’s home armed with an ax on New Year’s Day 2010. The cartoonist locked himself inside a room and was unharmed. Police arrived and shot Geelle in the leg.Strauss said his client had no intention of physically harming Westergaard.Geelle had testified that he only wanted to scare him after reading on the Internet that the 75-year-old Dane “was proud of the drawing and wanted to do more.’’Westergaard’s drawing was one of 12 cartoons of Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper in September 2005, triggering violent protests across the Muslim world four months later.
No date has been set for the appeal.
COPENHAGEN — A Somali man was sentenced to nine years in prison yesterday for breaking into the home of a Danish cartoonist who had caricatured the Prophet Mohammed.
The Aarhus city court ruled that Muhideen Mohammed Geelle, who had been convicted of terrorism on Thursday, should be expelled from Denmark after serving his sentence.Defense lawyer Niels Christian Strauss said he would appeal the conviction and sentence.Geelle, 29, entered Kurt Westergaard’s home armed with an ax on New Year’s Day 2010. The cartoonist locked himself inside a room and was unharmed. Police arrived and shot Geelle in the leg.Strauss said his client had no intention of physically harming Westergaard.Geelle had testified that he only wanted to scare him after reading on the Internet that the 75-year-old Dane “was proud of the drawing and wanted to do more.’’Westergaard’s drawing was one of 12 cartoons of Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper in September 2005, triggering violent protests across the Muslim world four months later.
No date has been set for the appeal.
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