3 men convicted in terror case

A Danish court on Friday convicted a Palestinian immigrant, an Iraqi Kurd and a Danish convert to Islam of plotting a bomb attack in one of Denmark's most high-profile terror cases.

A fourth defendant was acquitted in the case, which stemmed from a 2006 anti-terror sweep prompted by tips from an informant who infiltrated the group.

A jury in the Eastern High Court in Copenhagen handed down guilty verdicts to Mohammad Zaher, 34, Ahmad Khaldhadi, 22, and Abdallah Andersen, 32. Riad Anwer Daabas, 19, was acquitted.

Zaher and Khaldhadi, described as the two most active, were each sentenced to 11 years in prison by a three-judge panel, while Andersen was given a four-year sentence.

The men went on trial Sept. 5, exactly a year after they were arrested in a sting operation in the central Danish city of Odense involving 400 police officers.

Police said they found a bomb-making manual and about two ounces of the explosive triacetone triperoxide in Zaher's home. The same type of explosive was used by four suicide bombers who killed 52 subway and bus passengers in London in 2005. Richard Reid, the would-be British shoe bomber, tried unsuccessfully to detonate 8 ounces of the explosive during a flight in 2001.

Prosecutors have not said what the intended target was, but during the trial, they presented wiretap recordings of the defendants discussing possible targets, including the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005, the City Hall Square in Copenhagen and the nearby Tivoli amusement park.

The defendants denied the charges and said they were just joking when discussing possible attacks.

Khaldhadi holds Iraqi citizenship. Andersen converted to Islam in 2002.

Danish police say they have thwarted a series of terrorist attacks in recent years.

In September, eight people were arrested in what the Danish intelligence said was a crackdown on Islamic militants with links to senior al-Qaida leaders. On Feb. 15, a Danish court convicted a 17-year-old man of involvement in a terror plot uncovered in Bosnia in October 2005.