'Terrorist attack' hits Copenhagen

Security officers patrol the perimeter outside the Krudttoenden Cultural Center, Copenhagen, after shots were fired during a seminar on free speech on Saturday. Janus Engel / Associated Press

Police kill apparent lone perpetrator after he opens fire at free speech seminar and synagogue

Danish police said they shot and killed a man early on Sunday who was likely behind the shooting attacks at a free speech event and a synagogue in Copenhagen.

Investigator Joergen Skov said that "nothing at this point suggests there were other perpetrators" in the shootings that left two people dead and five police officers wounded.

The dramatic events that unfolded in Copenhagen stirred fears that another terror spree was underway in a European capital a month after 17 people were killed in Paris attacks.

Skov said the gunman was killed in a shootout with police in the Noerrebro district of Copenhagen. No police were wounded in that shooting.

The first shooting happened before 4 pm on Saturday when police said a gunman used an automatic weapon to fire through the windows of the Krudttoenden Cultural Center during a panel discussion on freedom of expression, featuring a Swedish artist who had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad. The artist, Lars Vilks, was whisked away unharmed by his bodyguards but a 55-year-old man attending the event was killed, while three police officers were wounded, the authorities said.

The prime minister described the first shooting, which bore similarities to an assault in Paris in January on the office of weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, as a terrorist attack.

"We feel certain now that it was a politically motivated attack, and thereby it was a terrorist attack," Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt told journalists.

European Council President Donald Tusk called Saturday's attack "another brutal terrorist attack targeted at our fundamental values and freedoms, including the freedom of expression".

Jewish man targeted

Helle Merete Brix, organizer of the panel discussion, told Reuters she had seen an attacker wearing a mask.

"The security guards shouted 'Everyone get out!' and we were being pushed out of the room," Brix said.

After midnight on Sunday, police said one man was killed and two police officers wounded in another shooting outside a synagogue by a gunman who fled on foot.

Dan Rosenberg Asmussen, the head of Denmark's Jewish community, told Danish public broadcaster DR that the victim at the synagogue was a Jewish man who was guarding the entrance of a building adjacent to the synagogue.

Skov said the shooter was confronted by police as he returned to an address that they were keeping under surveillance.

Vilks, 68, an artist who has faced numerous death threats for depicting Muhammad as a dog in 2007, said he believed he was the intended target of the first shooting, which happened at a panel discussion titled, "Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression".

"What other motive could there be? It's possible it was inspired by Charlie Hebdo," he said, referring to the Jan 7 attack by Islamic extremists on the French newspaper that had angered Muslims by lampooning Muhammad.

Police said it was possible the gunman had planned the "same scenario" as in the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Charlie Hebdo columnist Patrick Pelloux voiced dismay over the attack at the debate Vilks had been attending, saying: "We are all Danish tonight."

He urged artists not to succumb to self-censorship out of fear, telling AFP: "We must stand firm and not be afraid."

AP - Reuters - AFP