Danish court issues 12-year sentence over botched bomb attack

May 31, 2011, 10:05 GMT

Copenhagen - A Chechen-born man was Tuesday sentenced to a 12-year prison term for attempted terrorism over a botched bomb attack in Denmark last year.

The Copenhagen district court issued its sentence the day after the 25-year-old defendant was found guilty.

The prosecutor had called for a 12-year term, while the man's defence attorney had argued for a nine-year sentence, at most.

The parcel bomb exploded in the toilet of a Copenhagen hotel on September 10. Police arrested the man in a nearby park.

The defendant, who has had the lower part of one leg amputated, earlier denied he had set out to target the Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed in 2005, sparking riots worldwide.

He told the court he had been unaware of the Mohammed cartoons until he was in Danish custody, and had travelled to Denmark as a tourist since he 'wanted a change of scene.'

The court was told the explosives were packed in a metal container that he had planned to hang on his hotel door. When he ended up in a dormitory he decided he did not need the device, and was trying to disarm it when it exploded.

Prosecutors said evidence, including a note with the address of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, suggests it was the target.

The defendant said the reason he had looked up the newspaper's online site was that he was looking for a job.

The defendant, who has lived in Belgium, used several identities. A Danish newspaper traced him to a boxing club in the city of Liege where he trained, despite his amputated leg.