February 16, 2007	Friday	Muharram 27, 1428

COPENHAGEN, Feb 15: Danish judges on Thursday overturned their own jury’s guilty verdicts against three of four Muslim men charged with involvement in planning terrorist acts in Europe.

The judges ruled that three of the four accused were not guilty and released the men. The judges found the fourth man guilty.

The majority verdict by the 12-member jury went against the recommendation of the judges, who had called for the acquittal of three of the defendants due to a lack of evidence.

Under Danish law judges have the right to overturn juries' verdicts they fear are unsafe.

The guilty man was named as Abdul Basit Abu-Lifa, 17, a Danish citizen of Palestinian origin. His sentence was not immediately announced but he faces a maximum term of eight years in prison.

The three who were released, aged 18, 20 and 21, include a Bosnian citizen, and Danes of Syrian-Palestinian and Moroccan origin.

All four were arrested in October 2005 and were charged in August 2006 with plotting attacks in Europe.

In the first case of its kind dealing with terrorism in Denmark, the four were charged “for having, together with the two people detained in Bosnia, procured weapons and explosives with the aim of committing terrorist acts” in Europe.

The charges were brought under Denmark's article 114 anti-terror legislation, introduced in 2002 after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks in the US.

According to Danish authorities, the four men are linked to two accomplices arrested in Bosnia. In January a Bosnian court jailed the men, a Swede of Bosnian origin, Mirsad Bektasevic, and a Danish-born Turkish citizen, Abdulkadir Cesur.

The pair, together with a Bosnian man, were found guilty of planning a bomb attack on an unspecified European country because of its military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and the possession of weapons and 20 kilograms of explosives.—AFP