COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - A 31-year-old man has been charged with planning to explode bombs in Copenhagen and stabbing random people with kitchen knives, Danish prosecutors said.
Prosecutor Anders Riisager says the man, who was not identified, “had participated in ordering components that would be used to produce one or more bombs.”
The man was charged with attempting to carry out acts of terrorism and, if found guilty, he faces up to life in prison.
The man worked with an accomplice, Dieab Khadigah, who was sentenced by a German court in July 2017 to six-and-a-half years in prison.
Khadigah was arrested in November 2016 in the northern German port town of Puttgarten as he attempted to board a ferry for Denmark. His backpack contained 17,000 matches, 17 batteries, fireworks, two large kitchen knives and six walkie-talkies that the 31-year-old man had ordered.
Riisager said the sulfur from the matches was to be used in bombs.
“It may sound amateurish, but according to the charge, it was very serious,” Riisager said in a statement.
The suspect earlier had been described as living in Sweden, and Swedish media have said he was also was suspected of an October 2016 arson at a Shiite prayer room in Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city, just across a waterway from Copenhagen. He was acquitted.
Riisager says the trial of the suspect is scheduled for Jan. 22.
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