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SHOOTING

Shooting at Copenhagen mall was planned: official charges

The suspect in the upcoming trial over last year’s deadly shooting at the Field’s shopping mall in Copenhagen planned the attack and intended to kill, according to the public prosecutor in details of the charge sheet made public on Wednesday.

Shooting at Copenhagen mall was planned: official charges
People place flowers near the Field's shopping mall in Copenhagen after a shooting attack took three lives in July 2022. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

The prosecution service has charged the man with killing three people after going to Field’s with the intention of killing, according to the charge sheet, which was released to the media Wednesday.

A 17-year-old boy, a 17-year-old girl and a 46-year-old man lost their lives in the shooting. Several others were injured, some seriously after being hit by shots.

The charge sheet states that the 46-year-old’s children, who are minors, witnessed their father being shot in the lobby area of the Field’s cinema.

The 23-year-old accused, whose identity has not been disclosed, has been charged with 11 counts of related to murder, attempted murder, causing serious fear and being in possession of a weapon at a public place.

The prosecution has demanded confiscation of weapons carried by the man to Field’s – a rifle, a pistol and a knife. They also want to seize papers found at his home with handwritten notes.

The content of the notes has not been specified but it emerged at earlier court hearings that a search of the man’s home found texts pointing to the shooting being planned.

Further charges could yet be brought against the man, the Copenhagen Police prosecutor notes in the charge sheet.

It is also noted that prosecutors could demand a sentence other than a prison sentence if the accused is found guilty. That is because of the possibility he will be found unsuitable for normal sentencing and could be sentenced to treatment at a secure psychiatric facility.

Both the prosecution and the defence lawyer for the accused have earlier stated that he accepts the factual circumstances as he recalls them.

He denies guilt with reference to criminal law paragraph 16, the Danish equivalent of the mental disorder or insanity plea in criminal cases.

The case has been scheduled to take place over six days at Copenhagen City Court from June 12th to July 5th.

The penultimate day of the trial will be July 3rd, the first anniversary of the deadly attack.

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CRIME

Danish government backs removing children from gang-connected families

Denmark’s government wants authorities to be able to move children out of families in which parents are gang members and is likely to formalise the measure in parliament.

Danish government backs removing children from gang-connected families

The justice spokesperson with senior coalition partner the Social Democrats, Bjørn Brandenborg, told regional media TV2 Fyn that he wants authorities to have the power to remove children from their families in certain circumstances where the parents are gang members.

Brandenborg’s comments came on Monday, after Odense Municipality said it had spent 226 million kroner since 2009 on social services for eight specific families with gang connections.

“There is simply a need for us to give the authorities full backing and power to forcibly remove children early so we break the food chain and the children don’t become part of gang circles,” he said.

The measure will be voted on in parliament “within a few weeks”, he said.

An earlier agreement on anti-gang crime measures, which was announced by the government last November, includes provisions for measures of this nature, Brandenborg later confirmed to newswire Ritzau.

“Information [confirming] that close family members of a child or young person have been convicted for gang crime must be included as a significant and element in the municipality’s assessment” of whether an intervention is justified, the agreement states according to Ritzau.

The relevant part of November’s political agreement is expected to be voted on in parliament this month.

READ ALSO: Denmark cracks down on gang crime with extensive new agreement

Last year, Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told political media Altinget that family relations to a gang member could be a parameter used by authorities when assessing whether a child should be forcibly removed from parents.

In the May 2023 interview, Hummelgaard called the measure a “hard and far-reaching measure”.

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