Prophet cartoonist Lars Vilks 'targeted in Irish plot'

[klr]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8558022.stm

Prophet cartoonist Lars Vilks 'targeted in Irish plot'

Seven people have been arrested in the Irish Republic over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist for depicting the Prophet Muhammad, police say.

The four men and three women are all Muslim, according to media reports, though a police statement did not confirm this.

Cartoonist Lars Vilks had depicted the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog in the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper.

Islamic militants then put a $100,000 (£67,000) bounty on his head.

'Slaughter' bonus

Irish police said the seven suspects were arrested after an investigation into a "conspiracy to murder an individual in another jurisdiction", a probe that also involved police in the US and other European countries.

The suspects ranged in age from their mid-20s to late-40s.

Ireland's RTE news network reported that five were detained in Waterford and two others in Cork.

RTE said those in custody were originally refugees from Morocco and Yemen, but had gained asylum and were in the Republic of Ireland legally.

Mr Vilks has reportedly been under police protection in Sweden since threats were made against his life.

In 2007 a group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq offered a $100,000 reward for killing Mr Vilks, and a 50% bonus if he was "slaughtered like a lamb" by having his throat cut.

It offered another $50,000 for the murder of Ulf Johansson, editor-in-chief of the regional newspaper, Nerikes Allehanda.

Danish cartoons

The Vilks controversy arose in 2007, when his entry in an arts project was published by the newspaper.

It pictured a dog with the head of a bearded man in a turban.

It came about a year and a half after a series of depictions of Muhammad in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten paper caused an uproar in early 2006.

Those cartoons sparked protests from Muslims around the world. Dozens of people were killed in riots.

Muslims regard any image of the Prophet Muhammad as blasphemy.

In January, one of the cartoonists whose drawing appeared in Jyllands-Posten, the Dane Kurt Westergaard, was targeted in his own home, allegedly by a Somali radical Muslim with an axe.

Mr Westergaard, who escaped unharmed, had depicted the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.

Asylum emphasis mine.

[devogue]

Fuckin prod Muslims, no doubt.

[owtth]

Fuckin prod Muslims, no doubt.

How did they get asylum? by not being sufficiently batshit crazy? Maybe this was just an oh so subtle attempt to get in the good books back home.