Irish court charges two over plot to kill Swedish artist

Irish authorities have filed charges against two men who were arrested during an investigation into a plot to kill a Swedish artist who drew the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.

Ali Charaf Damache, a 44-year-old from Algeria, was charged with sending a threatening text message. Abdul Salam Monsour Khalil Al-Jahani, 32, from Libya, was charged with failing to show correct identity papers.

The charges, handed down by courts in Dublin and Waterford on Monday, follow the release of five others arrested at the same time as Damache and Al-Jahani. Two were Algerian, one Palestinian, one Croatian and one American.

US news reports identified the American as 31-year-old Islam convert Jamie Paulin Ramirez. Ramirez's mother and stepfather told Reuters that Damache and their daughter had recently married.

They also said they believe she was recruited to join the plot by Colleen LaRose, another American convert who has been charged with recruiting people to carry out terrorist plots over the Internet. US prosecutors said LaRose, who used the online alias "Jihad Jane," had pledged to carry out the murder of an unnamed Swedish resident. LaRose was arrested last fall.

Artist Lars Vilks' drawing appeared in a Swedish newspaper in 2007 to illustrate an editorial about freedom of expression. But the depiction attracted controversy and threats that mirrored those which followed a Danish newspaper's publication of several cartoons of Muhammad, including one drawn so that the prophet's turban resembled a bomb.

An Iraqi group linked to al Qaeda had offered a $100,000 reward for Vilks' murder. Vilks told Reuters last Wednesday that he had received further death threats in Internet messages since the arrests were announced last week.

svs/AFP/Reuters
Editor: Nancy Isenson