Two men charged with aiding Copenhagen gunman: lawyer

COPENHAGEN - Agence France-Presse

Police officers control the street in front of an internet cafe in Norrebro district in Copenhagen, February 15, 2015. REUTERS Photo

Two men were charged on Monday with helping the gunman who killed two people in twin attacks in Copenhagen at the weekend, a lawyer said.
      
"They are not charged with terrorism but they are charged with having helped the perpetrator get rid of a weapon and giving him a hiding place," the lawyer of one of the men, Michael Juul Eriksen, told AFP.
     
The two suspects, who appeared in court on Monday following their arrest on Sunday, cannot be named for legal reasons.
      
There was no immediate confirmation of the charges from police who had earlier announced the arrest of two men "suspected of aiding and abetting the perpetrator" of the deadly shootings at the Krudttoenden cultural centre and the synagogue in Krystalgade.
      
Both suspects are from an immigrant background, tabloid Ekstra Bladet reported.
      
The gunman himself, who was killed in a pre-dawn shootout with police on Sunday, has been identified in the media as Omar El-Hussein, a 22-year-old with a history of violent crime.
      
Ekstra-Bladet said he had been released from prison two weeks ago after serving a term for aggravated assault -- raising fears he may have become radicalised behind bars.

Danish police said Feb. 15 the gunman may have been inspired by last month's Islamist attacks in Paris.
      
The man, believed to be the sole perpetrator of what the Danish prime minister called "a cynical act of terror", was previously known to intelligence services, police said.
      
He "may have been inspired by the events that took place in Paris a few weeks ago," Jens Madsen from the Security and Intelligence Service told reporters.
      
He added that the man may "generally have been inspired by militant Islamist propaganda issued by ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] and other terror organizations."       

He said police were looking into the possibility that the man had travelled to conflict zones such as Syria and Iraq.

The gunman, who was not further identified, was believed to be behind two separate shootings that shocked Denmark's usually peaceful capital.
      
On Saturday, a 55-year-old man was killed at a panel discussion about Islam and free speech attended by Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist behind a controversial caricature of the Prophet Mohammed.
      
In the second attack, a 37-year-old Jewish man was killed outside Copenhagen's main synagogue early Sunday. Five police officers were wounded in the two attacks.
     
 "We believe the same man was behind both shootings and we also believe that the perpetrator who was shot by the police action force at Noerrebro station is the person behind the two attacks," senior police official Torben Moelgaard Jensen told a press conference.