Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Two convicted in Norway over terror plot

Updated at 6:44 am on 31 January 2012

A court in Norway has convicted two men of planning to attack the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Denmark after it printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The convictions were the first under anti-terrorism legislation in Norway.

Mikael Davud, a Norwegian from China's ethnic Uighur minority who had links to al-Qaeda, was sentenced to prison for seven years.

Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak, an Iraqi Kurd, was sentenced to 3½ years in prison. Another man was acquitted.

The BBC reports another man, David Jakobsen, was found guilty of helping the other two get hold of explosives, but cleared of terror charges.

The judge said that Davud "planned the attack together with al-Qaeda".

The three men were arrested in July 2010.

During the trial, prosecutors said that Davud learned about explosives at an al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan and, together with Bujak, planned to use them against the newspaper.

It was also claimed they had intended to kill Kurt Westergaard, who drew some of the cartoons.

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