Country Reports on Terrorism 2012

Prevention constitutes a key element of the Government’s approach, which is why the
Government, through an inter-ministerial approach, regularly develops and implements
initiatives aimed at reducing radicalization.”
Legislation, Law Enforcement, and Border Security: Significant law enforcement actions
against terrorists and terrorist groups in 2012, including arrests and prosecutions, follow:
On January 10, Copenhagen City Court sentenced ROJ-TV and its parent company
Mesopotamia Broadcast A/S METV under Article 1114E of the Fight Against Terrorism
Act for promoting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and spreading propaganda in
programs that incite terrorism during the period February 2008 to September 2010. Each
was sentenced to pay fines of $450,000. In its ruling, the court emphasized that ROJ-TV
received funding from the PKK. The court sent to the Danish Radio and Television
Council (Council) the question of whether the station’s license should be revoked. In
September, the Council ordered ROJ-TV to cease broadcasting for two months for failure
to maintain archives of programs.
On April 27, police arrested three men in Copenhagen on suspicion of plotting a terrorist
attack against Danish soldiers returning from Afghanistan. The men, a 22-year-old citizen
of Jordan, a 23-year-old Turkish man, and a 21-year-old Danish national from Egypt,
were arrested in possession of illegal automatic weapons and ammunition at two separate
sites in Copenhagen. The individuals were ultimately charged with weapons possession,
and, in November, each received a sentence of three-and-a-half years in prison.
On May 3, the Danish Supreme Court upheld the sentence of Mohamed Geele to nine
years in prison to be followed by expulsion from Denmark. Geele was convicted of
attempted commission of an act of terrorism, attempted murder, and aggravated assault of
a police officer. The conviction resulted from Geele’s January 1, 2010 attack with an axe
on cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, one of the creators of the Mohammed cartoons.
On May 28, Danish officials arrested a 23-year-old Danish national originally from
Somalia, and his brother, age 18, and charged them with receiving terrorism training.
On June 4, a Danish court sentenced four men, one Tunisian national and three Swedish
citizens of Middle Eastern origin, each to 12 years in prison for planning a gun attack in
2010 intended to kill as many people as possible at Jyllands-Posten, a major Danish
newspaper that previously published cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. The
court also ordered the men to be expelled from Denmark after serving their sentences and
to pay the trial costs. The men were arrested in Denmark in December 2010 after they
arrived from Sweden, before the planned attack.
Countering Terrorist Finance: Denmark is one of the 36 member nations of the Financial
Action Task Force. For further information on money laundering and financial crimes, we refer
you to the 2013 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), Volume 2, Money
Laundering and Financial Crimes: http://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/nrcrpt/index.htm.
Regional and International Cooperation: Denmark held the rotating Presidency of the Council
of the EU from January 1 – June 30 and had, as one of its four priorities, “A Safe Europe,” an
initiative “to enhance European police cooperation in the fight against human trafficking,
terrorism, and economic crime.” One of the key accomplishments during the Danish EU
Presidency was achieving European Council support for the creation of a European Passenger
Name Record system to ensure law enforcement has the most current tools in the fight against
67