Danes charge man in plot to kill Iranian opposition member

40-year-old Norwegian citizen of Iranian descent accused of gathering information for planned murder

By AP 25 March 2020, 6:12 pm

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Illustrative: Danish policemen stand guard in front of the city court in Copenhagen, Denmark, where a trial is to open on March 10, 2016 against four men accused of helping a Danish-born gunman whose attacks on a synagogue and a free speech event left two people dead. (AFP/SCANPIX DENMARK/Emil Hougaard)

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A 40-year-old Norwegian citizen of Iranian descent has been charged with helping an unnamed Iranian intelligence service carry out a plot on Danish soil to kill an Iranian opposition activist, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Prosecutor Lise-Lotte Nilas said the man, who was not identified, is suspected of gathering information which, according to the investigation, was to be used to carry out a murder in Denmark.

The suspect has denied any wrongdoing. He was arrested in Sweden and extradited to Denmark.

Nilas said it was “completely unacceptable that foreign intelligence services plan killings on Danish soil, and it is unacceptable that people help foreign intelligence services operate in Denmark.”

The man allegedly photographed and made videos of a person’s home on orders from an Iranian intelligence service, Nilas said. He was arrested in October 2018 over a suspected plot to kill an Iranian Arab opposition figure in Denmark. He was charged with illegal intelligence activity and complicity in attempted murder.

The plan was thwarted by Danish police.

A police operation in September 2018 related to an alleged Iranian plot briefly cut off Copenhagen from the rest of Denmark. The target was a leading member of the opposition Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA).

His trial is set to start May 1 in Roskilde, 25 kilometers (40 miles) west of Copenhagen