Danish police Thursday issued an arrest warrant in absentia for a Danish fighter in Syria who posed with severed heads and said another Dane who travelled to Syria had been held.
Copenhagen Police said the warrant from the 26-year-old man was issued for condoning acts of terrorism after he posted some photographs on Facebook.
The pictures showed the man “standing in front of some severed heads, and… wearing a shoulder strap with the Arabic text for the Islamic State (Isis),” a police statement said.
“The pictures appear to be taken in the city of Raqqa in Syria, which is an area controlled by Isis, where the accused is presumed to have stayed in July 2014 when the pictures were published on his Facebook profile,” it said.
See also: Danish jihadist poses with severed heads
The man also uploaded two pictures of Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, one of which carried the caption: “I sacrifice myself for you.”
“It's not a question of mere expressions of sympathy for terrorist organisations but of approval of actual terrorist acts,” chief prosecutor Dorit Borgaard said.
An international arrest warrant would also be issued for the man, who went missing on September 2nd last year.
Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defence College, told The Local that viewing the photos posted by the man made him “feel sick”.
“In the photo, he is wearing a sash with an Isis logo, he has a hand grenade, an automatic weapon and a sidearm. It's almost like posing near a wild animal shot in Kenya – it's that same sort of trophy shot. He's even smiling as well,” Ranstorp said.
Danish police also said a 21-year-old man from Allerød, around 30 kilometres (19 miles) northwest of Copenhagen, had been arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of spreading “extremist video material” on the internet.
The man “departed in 2013 for Syria, and has since his return to Denmark been in the police spotlight,” the regional police said in a separate statement.
Denmark has drawn international attention for offering counseling and mentorship programmes to radicalised youth who travel to Syria.
But it has not until now charged anyone for crimes committed in Syria, and the softly-softly approach has come under fire from the right wing opposition and the anti-immigrant Danish People's Party, which want to see more Syria fighters prosecuted.
Please whitelist us to continue reading.
Member comments