Glostrup Municipal Court is nearing the conclusion of a trial against four men accused of conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack against JP/Politikens Hus, which houses the Jyllands-Posten and Politiken newspapers.

“It was clear to all four (men) that a terrorist attack was to take place in Denmark. The plan was to kill,” says Prosecutor Gyrithe Ulrich in her summing up.

When arrested in Copenhagen in December 2010 police found a pistol and an automatic weapon in the men’s possession. Although the automatic weapon appeared to be faulty in that its magazine kept falling out, Ulrich said the group had brought 200 plastic strips with them from Sweden.

“So it doesn’t matter that you’re fumbling around with a gun – the hostages can’t go anywhere,” she said adding: “They were to kill as many people as they could before they were stopped. And they had 122 bullets.”

She characterised SZ as the main person in the group.

“He had the primary responsibility for the plan being enacted at all. He tries to say that it was only a fantasy, but we only have his word for that,” Gyrithe says, adding that a man arrested by Swedish security police had given a detailed explanation of what SZ had planned along with another of the accused, MD.

The group was arrested by the Danish Security and Intelligence Service in an apartment in Herlev shortly after Christmas in 2010. Apart from two firearms, the group had brought along heavy-duty plastic strips which the prosecution claims were to have been used on hostages.

The prosecution case is supported by conversations, e-mails and sms’s snapped up prior to their arrest. Among other things, Sweden’s security police SÄPO had installed listening devices in a Stockholm apartment where discussions about an attack took place.

“You can kill as many of the people you find as you can,” one of the accused – MD – tells his friend SZ in one of the recordings.

A Plan B is also alleged to have been prepared in which the group could attack a private home in which a lot of people were celebrating Christmas or the New Year.

SZ has admitted that violence had been discussed, but says that he had just been following through on an excited MD, but did not have any intention to take part in an attack.

MD says the weapons were his, and he had only brought them along to Copenhagen in order to have his automatic weapon mended by a criminal contact in the city, and had planned to watch a New Year’s firework display.

A third accused – OA – says that when the group got into their car in Sweden, he believed they were on their way to a mosque in Gävle north of Stockholm.

The last accused man - MA - has refused to make any statements in court.

FACEBOOK – Follow Politiken’s News in English