Three freed in Ireland after Swedish cartoonist 'plot' arrests
Posted: 13 March 2010 1211 hrs

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DUBLI: Three of seven Muslims arrested over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who drew the Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog have been released without charge, Irish police said Friday.

The three, two women and one man, were freed after three-and-a-half days of questioning. Three men and one woman remain in custody.

The group was arrested Tuesday over an alleged plot to assassinate Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who has a US$100,000 (74,000-euro) bounty on his head from an Al-Qaeda-linked group.

"They were released without charge," a Garda (Irish police) spokesman told AFP.

Those arrested were three Algerians, a Libyan, a Palestinian, a Croatian and a US national, a police source told AFP on Thursday. They ranged in age from mid 20s to late 40s.

Suspects can be held for up to a week after their arrest without charge. Police are preparing files on the three who were released for the country's director of public prosecutions, meaning they could still face charges.

The controversy started when Swedish regional daily Nerikes Allehanda published Vilks' satirical cartoon in 2007 to illustrate an editorial on the importance of freedom of expression.

The cartoon prompted protests by Muslims in the town of Oerebro, west of Stockholm, where the newspaper is based, while Egypt, Iran and Pakistan made formal complaints.

An Al-Qaeda front organisation then offered US$100,000 to anyone who murdered Vilks - with an extra 50,000 if his throat was slit - and US$50,000 for the death of Nerikes Allehanda editor-in-chief Ulf Johansson.

The protests in Sweden echoed the uproar caused in Denmark by the publication in September 2005 of 12 drawings focused on Islam, including one showing the Prophet Mohammed with a turban in the shape of a bomb.

On Wednesday, leading Swedish newspapers published Vilks' cartoon again in a demonstration of solidarity.

Earlier this week, the Irish Independent newspaper reported that a suspect known as "JihadJane", the online name of Colleen LaRose, had spent two weeks in Ireland last September on a "fact-finding trip" before her arrest in October.

LaRose has been indicted for recruiting jihadist fighters in the US, Europe and Asia in a bid to carry out terror plots.

She was reportedly monitored with a couple in Cork and Waterford in southern Ireland, where the seven were arrested.

US prosecutors said that LaRose had agreed to carry out the murder of a Swedish resident, pledging "only death will stop me."

The US Justice Department has declined to say if LaRose was connected to the alleged plot to kill Vilks.

- AFP/yb