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Seven Danes accused of selling 'terror' T-shirts acquitted:
court
AFP, December
13, 2007
COPENHAGEN, Dec
13, 2007 (AFP) - Seven Danes accused of supporting
"terrorist" organisations by selling T-shirts in aid of
Colombian and Palestinian extremists were acquitted by a
Copenhagen court on Thursday.
The seven were
indicted in March for "attempting to collect money with a
view to aiding groups which commit or intend to commit
terrorist acts," after they sold T-shirts to raise funds for
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and
the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Thurday's
verdict was the first time a Danish court has ruled on how
to consider Danish citizens' support for groups that figure
on the European Union's list of terrorist organisations.
Danish
anti-terrorist laws brought in the wake of the September 11,
2001 attacks in the United States made it illegal to finance
such groups directly or indirectly -- with those found
guilty facing up to 10 years in prison.
The lower
Copenhagen court decided Thursday however to acquit the
defendants after it ruled that the PFLP and FARC were "not
really terrorist" groups.
The court found
that the organisations' actions "fell under (Denmark's)
article 114 on terrorism, but it has not been proven that
their objective is to frighten or destabilise or destroy the
foundations of society."
In February
2006 Danish police shut down the Internet site "Fighters and
Lovers" which made and sold the T-shirts inscribed with the
logos of FARC and PFLP. They also confiscated 25,000 kroner
(3,300 euros, 4,900 dollars) made from the sales of the
T-shirts.
Each T-shirt
retailed at 23 euros, with five euros from each sale going
towards the two movements.
This money went
towards financing a radio station in Colombia and a graphics
workshop in the Palestinian territories, according to one of
the accused Michael Schoelardt, boss of Fighters and Lovers,
which insists FARC and the PFLP are "liberation movements".
Defence lawyer
Thorkild Hoeyer said Thursday he was happy with the verdict.
"There is no
proof that these are terrorist organisations," he told the
Ritzau news agency, lamenting the "current ambience in
Denmark where it is enough to pronounce the word terrorism
for the floodgates (of excesses) to open."
Prosecutor Lone
Damgaard, who had called for the seven defendants to spend
between two and nine months in prison for their T-shirt
sales, said she was "disappointed" by the court ruling,
insisting in an interview with TV2News that "the PFLP and
FARC are organisations that commit crimes and take hostages
and are terrorists." |
