Denmark 2022
01/01/2022: The Danish police established the Special Crimes Unit with a separate public prosecutor's office, the State Prosecutor for Special Crime Unit. Both structures are meant to strengthen the fight against complex crime by bringing together the most specialized police and prosecutorial skills, and to ensure operational cooperation between authorities and private actors to combat and prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. (Source)
01/03/2022: Danish authorities have published the 2022 Assessment of the Terrorist Threat to Denmark. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 has provided an opportunity for terrorist groups, such as Al-Qaeda and IS, to boost their capability locally in the region. Since the long-term effect on the terrorist threat outside the region is still subject to uncertainty, Danish authorities require caution before a proper assessment can be made later. In the time being, the report states that the most direct threat posed by Islamist terrorism are lone wolf actors under influence or galvanized by what they perceived as offences against Islam.(Source)
03/04/2022: The police at Kastrup in Copenhagen, has arrested Swedish IS returnee Camilla Olfsson and Al-Qaeda second-in-command Mohamed Moumou's eldest daughter as she was about to take a 4-year-old child to Qatar to relatives in the local extremist environment. She had arranged to meet at the airport with a family member from Qatar who had plans to finance the trip. Since she was deemed by the Administrative Court to be deeply endoctrinated by her family upbringing, Swedish authorities decided that she would be taken into care under the Care of Young Persons Act. (Source)
09/06/2022: The Copenhagen City Court sentenced two young men aged 23 and 24 who wanted to make bombs for use in a terrorist attack to twelve years and six months in prison respectively. Mustafa Awad and Mohammad Ikram Karim were originally arrested in a search operation in December 2019, and charged with terrorist planning as the police believed that the seized chemicals were to be used to detonate a bomb at an unknown location. As one of the men has Afghani citizenship, he was stripped of his Danish nationality and is set to be deported from Denmark at the end of sentence. The same case also involves a 40-year-old woman and mother of three, Mardiyya Kahina Birdouz, who was arrested in December 2019 too and convicted of financing terrorism and of helping people with connections to IS. As such, she was sentenced to four years in prison and is supposed to be expelled from the country as she might be an Algerian citizen but she is not sure about that. They appealed the decision. (Source)
06/07/2022: The six men, aged 30, 32, 29, 31, 28 and 37, who were arrested in April 2021 are charged with being recruited by IS and providing financial support to the terrorist organization. The trial began at the Court in Aarhus on September 1, 2022. The verdict was made on November 18, 2022. The 30-year-old, was sentenced to five years in prison for promoting IS during a trip to Syria in July 2014 and terrorism financing between 2013 and 2017. In total, approximately 230,000 kroner was transferred or attempted to be transferred. The 32-year-old was sentenced to one and a half years in prison. They both have been charged under Section 114 c, subsection 3 of the Danish Criminal Code with having allowed themselves to be recruited to commit acts covered by Section 114 or 114 a of the Danish Criminal Code. The three other men have been sentenced to prison for terrorism financing in cooperation with the first accused aged 30. They were intitially charged with actions under section 114 b, no. 1 of the Criminal Code, cf. section 23, cf. in part section 21, for having provided terrorist support, or attempted to do so. Two have been sentenced to six months in prison, while the third has been sentenced to nine months in prison. A sixth defendant was acquitted of terrorism financing. (Source)
02/09/2022: The Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration has published an extensive study entitled: "Challenges related to Salafism and Jihadi-Salafism in Denmark – History, current developments and practical experiences". This the most comprehensive and complete research study on Islamism in Denmark so far. It stands as a major additional contribution to the previous draft "IN BRIEF: The conference report 'Contextualising Salafism and Salafi Jihadism'" published in November 2020, but mostly, it is complementary to the similar research carried out in Sweden entitled "Between Salafism and Salafi-Jihadism Influence and Challenges for Swedish Society" published in June 2018. The study tells the story of Danish Islamism from the settling of Jihadist foreign pioneers in the 1980's to the waves of foreign fighters who flowed to IS territory in the 2010's and their connection to wider Jihadist networks. Furthermore, it gives a clearer assessment regarding the alleged continuum between Salafi milieu and the Jihadist beliefs. It turns out that contrary to the Swedish Islamist landscape, Salafism is not a pathway as obvious and systematic to Jihadist violence as it was pointed out in Sweden. Nuances and alternative drivers are more relevant for the Danish context. However, Salafism remain a social and societal challenge to Denmark as it spreads beliefs antithetical to democratic values and eagerly exploit a victimhood narrative depicting Muslims as oppressed sub-citizens thus channeling their frustration for the benefit of more violent actors. (Source)
08/09/2022: Jacob el-Ali, the 33-year-old Danish-Palestinian Jihadist that was deported to Denmark by Türkiye back in December 2020, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in Copenhagen for taking part in fighting on behalf of IS. During the sentencing procedure, it was confirmed that participated in and filmed a parade where IS displayed its weapons, and that in 2014 he posed for a photo with some severed heads wearing a belt with the Arabic text "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant". As such he is the first foreign fighter to be convicted of treason by a Danish court. Since he cooperated with the police during his custody period and confessed several crimes, he was therefore sentenced to fourteen years in prison instead of life imprisonment. (Source)
18/11/2022: A 35-year-old woman who returned from Syria with her children back in October 2021 and who has been in custody ever since, was sentenced to three years in prison for entering a conflict area in Syria and promoting the activities of IS. She was charged under Section 114 e, 1st sentence, and Section 114 j of the Danish Criminal Code and pleaded guilty. However she appealed the verdict. (Source)
On December 19, 2022, the Court of Appeal has ultimately toughened the sentence, increasing it from three to four years of prison as the accused pleaded guilty to keeping the home for her husband and serving as a housewife. (Source)
29/11/2022: The High Court has added two extra years to the sentence set by the Court in Frederiksberg to Abdullah Akbulut back in September 2021, ultimately increasing it from ten to twelve years in prison. (Source)
20/12/2022: the Holbæk Court sentenced to sixteen years in prison Ali Al Masry, a 35-year-old man for attempted terrorism by manslaughter and bombing, terrorism financing and terrorist promotion. This is the harshest sentence ever given in a terrorist case in Denmark. Police found at his home 16 kilos of chemicals that can be used to make bombsand all the parts to make a remote-controlled car that can transport a bomb weighing up to 20 kilos. The man's brother and wife were sentenced to six months and nine months in prison, respectively, for assisting the man in providing support by transferring small amounts of money to the wife's brother. The 35-year-old's brother was acquitted of attempted terrorism, but convicted of complicity in terrorism financing in respect of an amount of approximately DKK 17,000 to the 35-year-old's brother-in-law. The wife was also convicted of helping her brother, who was a IS fighter, to create a WhatsApp account. If the brother will expelled from Denmark this is not the case for the wife. They were arrested alongside 11 other persons during the operation carried out with German assistance back in February 2021. The verdict was appealed by Ali Al Masry.(Source)