Gardaí given more time to question cartoonist 'plot' suspects
Gardaí have been given more time to question three men in connection with a suspected plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist.
They were among seven people arrested on Tuesday in a series of raids in the south east of the country by anti-terrorist units acting on intelligence from the CIA, FBI and European agencies.
The investigation centres on an alleged international conspiracy to murder Lars Vilks who controversially depicted the Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog.
On Friday a man and two women were freed after three and a half days of questioning.
Yesterday afternoon another woman among those arrested was also released. Gardaí said files are being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
A court in Waterford last night granted gardaí a further 48 hours to question the remaining three in custody.
Mr Vilks, whose cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed were printed in the Swedish Nerikes Allehanda newspaper in August 2007, was under threat of death from Iraqi members of the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaida.
They put a US$100,000 (€74,000) bounty on the cartoonist’s head, forcing him into police protection in an isolated area of Sweden.
US caretaker Colleen LaRose, who styled herself 'Jihad Jane' in a YouTube video, was charged with plotting his murder bid.
The suspect was accused in the US on Tuesday of conspiring with jihadist fighters and pledging to commit murder in the name of a Muslim holy war, or jihad.
According to the US Justice Department, the 46-year-old, who also goes by the name Fatima LaRose, plotted with five others in South Asia, Eastern and Western Europe and the US to recruit men on the internet to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe.
