By Tommy Hansen
COPENHAGEN
The alleged gunman in the dual shooting attacks in Copenhagen was known to police due to his involvement in gangs, Danish police said in a statement Sunday.
On Monday morning, two other persons were formally charged with assisting the 22-year-old Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, who was born and raised in Denmark.
According to the police, Omar El-Hussein carried out the two attacks on Saturday and Sunday by himself, but the two persons arrested on Sunday are suspected of delivering and disposing of the weaponry used by El-Hussein in the two deadly attacks. Both suspects pleaded innocent.
El-Hussein himself was known by Danish police for several crimes and had just been released from prison, serving time for aggravated assault, after having stabbed a young man in a Copenhagen S-Train in 2013. He has also been connected to criminal gangs in the Danish capital, according to the police statement.
According to Danish police, El-Hussein went to an apartment in northern Copenhagen directly after the first shooting at 15:33 CET (1433GMT) on Saturday at a public seminar called "Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression," killing Danish film director Finn Norgaard, 55, and wounding three police officers, two of them from the Danish Security and Intelligence Service.
At the apartment, he changed his clothes and then disappeared for several hours.
At 00:50 CET (2350GMT) on Sunday morning he then showed up at the Great Synagogue in Krystalgade in central Copenhagen, where a bar mitzvah ceremony with around 80 people took place. During the shootings, 38-year-old Jewish security guard Dan Uzan was shot in the head and later died from the wound.
Two officers from Danish Security and Intelligence Services were also wounded in the attack.
Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein was shot dead by Danish police early Sunday morning when returning to his apartment in Mjolnerparken after opening fire against police forces surveying the area.
His location had been tracked to the neighborhood by CCTV coverage.
Danish police are still looking for witnesses who can provide information on the whereabouts of El-Hussein from Saturday until the time he was killed on Sunday morning.
The attacks in Copenhagen have been condemned both nationally and internationally.
Queen Margrethe II of Denmark stated: "It is with sadness that I learn the extent of the past days' events. My thoughts are with the slain filmmaker and the young guard from the Jewish community, who became the target of the perpetrator's actions."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Sunday for European Jews to move to Israel. He was opposed by the Rabbi of the Great Synagogue, Jair Melchior, who said: "Terror is not a reason to move to Israel. Terror’s goal is to change our lives and we won’t let it.”
