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TERRORISM

Danish ‘martyr’ exhibit reported to police

A Copenhagen art exhibit planning to portray two of the Brussels suicide bombers and one of the Paris Bataclan attackers as "martyrs" was on Monday reported to police for encouraging terrorism.

Danish 'martyr' exhibit reported to police
The exhibition will feature Brussels Airport bomber Ibrahim El-Bakraoui and other terrorists. Photo: Public domain
In an exhibit partly inspired by Tehran's Martyrs' Museum, a Danish group of artists plans to include brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El-Bakraoui, who detonated bombs in the deadly Brussels attacks on March 22nd, and Foued Mohamed-Aggad, who blew himself up at Paris music venue Bataclan on November 14th.
 
The installation will have the look of a museum, using images of the “martyrs”, replicas of their belongings and plaques to explain who they are.
 
The suicide bombers will be featured alongside historical figures considered to have died for their cause, such as French heroine Joan of Arc and Greek philosopher Socrates, said Ida Grarup Nielsen of artist collective The Other Eye of The Tiger.
 
“A guide will talk about Foued Mohamed-Aggad and the events at the Bataclan, during which the room will also be [filled] with sound and light,” she told AFP.
 
The story would be told “more from his point of view,” she said.
 
The El-Bakraoui brothers would not be included in the guided tour but photos of them and replicas of their belongings would be put on display, including a black leather glove believed to have been worn by Ibrahim El-Bakraoui to conceal a bomb detonator.
 
The exhibit is scheduled to go on display from May 26th until June 10th in a former abattoir in Kødbyen, Copenhagen's trendy Meatpacking District.
 
The venue is home to a theatre group whose artistic leader, Christian Lollike, courted controversy in 2012 by staging a play based on the manifesto of Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik.
 
“Our exhibit is really about describing the term 'martyr' from as many different angles as possible and through history,” Nielsen said.
 
Everyone is “the hero of [their] own story,” she added.
 
Danish gunman Omar El-Hussein, who killed two people in twin attacks in Copenhagen in February last year, would not be part of the exhibit since it was unclear whether he had been willing to die for his beliefs, she said.
 
The 22-year-old was killed in a shootout with police hours after killing a security guard outside the city's main synagogue.
 
A local member of the ruling Venstre party, Diego Gugliotta, on Monday reported the event and its organisers to police for “encouraging terror”.
 
Portraying international terrorists as heroes could push some people to “take the last step and join a terror organisation,” he wrote on Facebook.

TERRORISM

Denmark strips dual national of citizenship after terror conviction

A court in Denmark jailed a dual Danish-Turkish national for 10 years on Tuesday and stripped him of his citizenship for "planning a terrorist attack".

Denmark strips dual national of citizenship after terror conviction
The court at Frederiksberg ruled a 24-year-old man must be stripped of his Danish citizenship following a conviction on terrorism charges. Photo: Ólafur Steinar Gestsson/Ritzau Scanpix

The 24-year-old — who was not named by the court — will serve his prison sentence in Denmark, but will then be deported to Turkey upon release, the court in Frederiksberg said in a statement.

The man, a native of Copenhagen, had been under surveillance by the intelligence services and was arrested in April 2020 immediately after purchasing a gun and ammunition. 

The police had found a flag of the Islamic State group in his home. 

Prosecutors had demanded a jail term of 12 years and had charged him with purchasing weapons and ammunition “with the intent of perpetrating one or more terrorist attacks”.

The potential targets were not revealed.

After the man is deported, he will be banned for life from entering Danish territory. 

“I think he’s been in Turkey fewer times than many other Danish people,” his lawyer, Rolf Gregersen, told the court.

“Denmark must take responsibility for him once he was awarded Danish citizenship. They can’t just stick a postage stamp on his back and send him on his way,” the lawyer was quoted by the Danish news agency Ritzau as saying. 

The Danish intelligence services, which have foiled a number of attacks in recent years, categorise the risk of an attack against Denmark as “serious”, six years after an Islamist-motivated double attack in Copenhagen left two people dead.

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