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Danish terror victims honored on anniversary of shooting

February 13, 2016

One year after a Danish-born gunman killed a filmmaker and a Jewish security guard in twin attacks in Copenhagen, the
country will on Sunday honour the victims amid tight security.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen will on Sunday leave flowers outside the cultural center and the city’s main synagogue. He will then attend an event inside parliament organised by the Finn Norgaard Association, a charity set up to support children and young people.

Later in the day, Dan Uzan and Finn Norgaard, who were killed in the attack, will be commemorated with a chain of 1,800 candles lit on a 3.6 kilometer (2.2 mile) route between the two locations in which the attack took place.

On February 14, 2015, Omar El-Hussein, a 22-year-old Dane of Palestinian origin, opened fire with an automatic weapon on a cultural center where Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks — reviled by Islamists for portraying the Prophet Mohammed as a dog in 2007 — was among those attending a conference on “art, blasphemy and freedom”.

Danish filmmaker Finn Norgaard, 55, was killed and three policemen were wounded. After managing to escape, the assailant shot a 37-year-old Jewish security guard, Dan Uzan, in front of a synagogue, and wounding two police officers. Uzan was standing guard in the front of the Main Synagogue protecting a Bat Mitzvah that was happening inside.

The attack shocked the country’s tiny Jewish community, which numbers just 6,000-8,000 people.

“Dan Uzan is a shining example for all of us,” Denmark’s Ambassador to Israel, Jesper Vahr, told Walla! News. “We must stand firm against terrorism, in all its manifestations.”

Uzan was later chosen as the Danish “Man-of-the-year” for 2015 for giving his life to protect his fellow Jews.

El-Hussein, was seemingly inspired by the attacks on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and was killed a few hours after he committed the attack during a shootout with police in the immigrant-heavy Norrebro district.

El-Hussein, who was released from prison weeks before the attacks after serving time for a stabbing, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State jihadist group on his Facebook account on the day of the attack. Danish intelligence agency PET has been criticized for failing to act on information from prison services that he was at risk of radicalization, and former classmates have claimed they tried to warn the police as far back as 2012.

Four men held after the attacks have been charged with helping El-Hussein and will appear in court next month.

AFP contributed to this report.

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