Third death, possibly of terrorist, after two victims killed in Copenhagen attacks on café and synagogue
DEBKAfile Special Report February 15, 2015
Two shooting attacks within 10 hours of each other in Copenhagen left two civilians and five Danish police officers injured before and after midnight Saturday, Feb. 14. A man was early Sunday shot dead by police at the nearby Norrebro railway station when he opened fire. Police are attempting to establish whether he was one of the shooters and if indeed the two attacks were connected. Police warned people to stay off the streets early Sunday as armed terrorists were still at large and the entire country placed on high terror alert..
In the second incident, outside the main synagogue in central Copenhagen, a young man was shot in the head at close range and two police officers guarding the building were injured. The gunman ran from the scene on foot.
In the first incident Saturday night, one person was killed and three police officers injured by multiple shots at a meeting in a Copenhagen cafe in support of freedom of speech with the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, threatened with death over the cartoons he published in 2007 depicting the Prophet Mohammad as a dog. He has had constant police protection since then. The artist and the French ambassador who was present were not harmed. The gunman did not make it into the café. He fired at least 200 bullets into the building. Bodyguards are described by witnesses as returning the fire before the shooter escaped in a waiting Volkswagen, which was later found abandoned.
Like the editor of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo editor, which Islamists attacked last month killing 17 people, Vilks was one of nine faces on a “Most Wanted” graphic published by al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine for “crimes against Islam.”
Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, arriving at the scene of the first attack, said, “Everything points to … the shooting in Oesterbro (being) a political assassination and therefore a terror attack.” She vowed that
“all resources will be used to find (those responsible) and bring them before a judge” for an attack she said filled her “with deep anger.” “We have some difficult days ahead,” the Prime Minister said. “… But in Denmark, we will never bow to violence.”
