Danish Police shot dead a 22-year-old Danish-born gunman on Sunday after he killed two people at a Copenhagen synagogue at an event to promote free speech. The gunman’s actions is believed to have possibly been inspired by the terror attack carried out last month at the Paris offices of French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Click here if you missed it!
These two separate incidents in what Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Scimidt described as a terror attack occurred in Copenhagen on Saturday, 14th February and Sunday, 15th February. The first terror attack on Valentine’s Day, happened when a gunman shot a 55-year-old film director, “Finn Noegaard” at a free speech event held at Krudttoenden cafe. As reported by DailyMail.UK, the real target at the event was 68-year-old caricaturist Lars Vilks who was under assassination watch for years with his cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed and Islam in funny caricatures deemed offensive to Muslims. However, Vilks managed to escape via the back door and Mr. Finn Noegaard was killed. According to BBC, the film director never depicts Islamic issues in his films.
The second incident on Sunday happened when another gunman fired at a synagogue indiscriminately killing a security guard and injuring two policemen while a bat mitzvah ceremony was underway. The gunman then fled and was cornered at the Norrebro metro station, and was later killed after exchanging fire with policemen.
The Danish Prime Minister confirmed the country came under terror attack and released the following statement outside the synagogue where she paid respect to the slain security guard and vowed to defend free expression and freedom to profess their religious faith: ‘We do not know the motive for the alleged perpetrator’s actions, but we know that there are forces that want to hurt Denmark.”….'”They want to rebuke our freedom of speech. The Jewish community is a large and integrated part of Danish society. We are together with you in your grief ‘ She continues ‘Together we will shield from the kind of attack we saw last night.”
