Danish Shooting; Swedish Artist on Hit List
BALDWIN: I just wanted to look at some live pictures here. 8:15 at night in Copenhagen, Denmark. This is a candlelight vigil. And this is the city that is reeling merely two days after a string of deadly shootings. Two people were killed in the attacks in a cafe and at a synagogue. Now, two men today are behind bars in connection with those deadly attacks in Denmark. Their defense attorney says they have pleaded not guilty to charges of accessory to murder and accessory to attempted murder. They're accused of helping the suspected gunman get rid of his weapon and give him a place to hide. That suspect is dead. Police found him after some surveillance pictures showed him getting into a taxi after one of the attacks. That driver gave police the address. And then when officers appeared, the gunman began shooting, police shot and then killed him. That was hours after the suspect opened fire in a cafe during the free speech forum. In fact, there was a Swedish cartoonist known for his controversial drawings of the Prophet Muhammad who was there. The BBC has obtained a chilling audio recording of the moment the shots rang out.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do we still say bus when we - (gunfire)</s>BALDWIN: One man, a filmmaker, was killed in that attack. Three officers were injured. Hours later, more gunshots, this time at a synagogue during a barmitzva (ph). A security guard was killed there. TV 2 and Reuters are reporting the suspect is Omar Abdel Hamid El- Hussein. Danish officials say there is no known link to a terror cell at this point in time, but he is linked to a criminal group. So let's talk about that with CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank, author of "Agent Storm: My Life Inside al Qaeda and the CIA," about a former Danish jihadi turned CIA spy. Beginning with this first. Obviously, you know, when you hear about this cartoonist and the controversial depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, you know, it jogs back not too long ago to what happened in Paris and the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks and police are saying that they're not necessarily ruling out that as a possible motivating factor. What do you make of that?</s>PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: I think, quite likely, it's been an inspiration. I mean we saw exactly the same kind of target in Denmark as in Paris and Paris was against a kosher market, against a cartoonist. Well, in Denmark, against an artist, who's responsible for a controversial depiction of the Prophet Muhammad -</s>BALDWIN: And a synagogue.</s>CRUICKSHANK: And also a barmitzvah (ph) party just outside a synagogue.</s>BALDWIN: Yes.</s>CRUICKSHANK: So very, very similar targets. Somebody who appears to have been radicalized in prison, was a gang member, known to Danish security services for being a gang member but for -- not for being an extremist. They didn't know that he was radical. That was a surprise to them. But he just got out of prison a couple of weeks ago, so it's quite possible he was radicalized there while he was in jail.</s>BALDWIN: That's the thing. We've talked about that before, how other wannabes jihadists are taught, are radicalized behind bars. And when you say they're members of gangs, you say there's a real problem in Denmark, in particular, with young, disenfranchised Muslim youth who have access to weapons because they're members of a biker gang, let's say. How does that take someone from that step to becoming jihadi?</s>CRUICKSHANK: Well, that's absolutely right. And there is a particular nexus in Denmark between these gangs and jihadi circles. And for a lot of people inside the gangs, there's sort of a jihadi mindset that they have that sort of justifies their criminality because it's all against the infidel west. And also for some of them is a sort of redemption, a sort of born again in Islam-type dynamic that goes on. So we've seen gangsters who have moved from Denmark to go and fight in Syria and Iraq, you know, and, you know, even just recently people have gone over there and come back. So there's this real nexus between gangs and jihad. That's very, very worrying for Danish officials because, as you said, the easy access to weapons, even explosives and all this kind of stuff, all the kind of resources of the criminal underworld are available to these people.</s>BALDWIN: But when I think of similar conversations we had in this regard in Paris, and we had those two attackers who had, especially one of them in particular, who was radicalized because of certain leaders in certain cells in France, who would have radicalized this attacker in Denmark?</s>CRUICKSHANK: Well, that's going to be a big part of the investigation. But right throughout Europe, and even in the United States, there's a real problem of prison radicalization in Europe particularly. A lot of young Muslims are being sent to jail. And when they go to jail, some of them are mixing with these terror convict who are spreading this ideology. It's a real, real problem. In France now they're so worried about it that they are talking about separating the general prison population from these terror convicts, so you can't have this kind of proselytization that goes on. Remember Amedy Coulibaly who carried out that attack in Paris against the kosher market -</s>BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.</s>CRUICKSHANK: He was radicalized in jail. One of his mentors was an al Qaeda operative who'd been in Afghanistan with bin Laden.</s>BALDWIN: Final question. If we're saying he is -- if he was perhaps acting alone, yet you have these two other people who were arrested who may have helped him carry this out behind the scenes, do we know anything more about those people behind bars?</s>CRUICKSHANK: We don't know anything more about their identity at this point.</s>BALDWIN: We don't.</s>CRUICKSHANK: Were they perhaps two other gang members who were also radicalized or just friends of his, but they appear to have obviously known what he was planning, which is obviously very concerning that there were at least potentially three people involved in these plans, Brooke.</s>BALDWIN: OK, Paul Cruickshank, thank you very much. We'll stay on it. We'll talk next hour I believe as well. Before the deadly attacks in Copenhagen, Swedish artist Lars Vilks was already at the heart of the controversy involved free speech in the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, as I mentioned a moment ago. And he's actually lived with death threats since he drew the Prophet Muhammad as a dog and that was merely a decade ago. Saturday, he was in that cafe, in the Danish capital for this forum on free speech, when the gunmen attacked. And today this cartoonist tells CNN that he is now in hiding but that he is not afraid. CNN's Atika Shubert gives us a closer look at this artist and activist who now faces threats every day of his life.</s>ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what happened when Swedish artist Lars Vilks spoke at an art and free speech lecture in 2010. He was punched at the podium and then cries of "Allahu Akbar" descended into a brawl. It's an occupational hazard for Vilks. He receives daily death threats and regularly sweeps his car for explosives. All because of a picture he drew in 2007 of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. That landed him on al Qaeda's hit list with a $100,000 bounty on his head. Here's how he explained it in a 2010 interview.</s>LARS VILKS, ARTIST: This should be a small thing really, to insult a religion. You cannot make exceptions for religion. I mean that's the point. I mean this should be the same rules as we have for Christianity or the Jewish religion or whatsoever, that we should make an exception. Islam is not more holy than the other ones.</s>SHUBERT: But Vilks did not start this latest round of controversy. In 2005, the Danish newspaper, "Jyllands-Posten," published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, including one with a bomb atop the prophet's head, sparking protest for Muslim communities across the world. For many Muslims, any images of the Prophet Muhammad is seen as blasphemous. Even worse, depictions that deliberately insult the prophet. CNN has decided not to show any of these images. But for Vilks and his supporters, it's a matter of free speech, and that is why Vilks was speaking in Copenhagen on Saturday when a gunman opened fire killing one man and injuring three police officers. Danish police have shot dead a man suspected of carrying out the attack, but have yet to reveal his identity or motive. But police are investigating it as a terrorist attack. Vilks and his supporters, however, already have an answer. They believe Vilks and his works of art were the targets of violence yet again. Atika Shubert, CNN, London.</s>BALDWIN: Atika, thank you. Coming up next here on CNN, a cease-fire in Ukraine hanging on by a thread as both sides are massing forces as this violence continues. We're live in Donetsk and eastern Ukraine coming up. And as ISIS terrorists brutally killed these Egyptian Christians in Libya, Egypt takes swift action, launching airstrikes, but does this change the strategy for the U.S.-led coalition? Stay right here.