Two Chicago men who were schoolmates in Pakistan plotted terrorist attacks against a Danish newspaper that triggered widespread protests by printing cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, federal prosecutors said on Tuesday in announcing charges against the men.
David Headley, 49, traveled to Denmark in January and July to conduct surveillance on possible targets, including the Copenhagen and Aarhus offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, prosecutors said in criminal complaints filed in US District Court in Chicago. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48, helped arrange Headley’s travel, prosecutors said.
Danish authorities said there could be more arrests.
US prosecutors say Headley visited the newspaper’s Copenhagen offices in January and told employees he represented Rana’s business, First World Immigration Services, and that the business was considering opening offices in Denmark and might buy advertising.
Prosecutors said Headley told FBI agents after his Oct. 3 arrest at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport that the initial plan called for attacks on the newspaper’s offices, but that he later proposed just killing the paper’s former cultural editor and the cartoonist behind the drawings.
The newspaper published 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in 2005. One cartoon showed Mohammed wearing a bomb-shaped turban.
Headley, a US citizen, is charged with conspiracy to commit terrorist acts involving murder and maiming outside the US. He was arrested as he boarded a flight to Philadelphia, the first leg of a trip to Pakistan.
Headley and Rana are each charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorism conspiracy.
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