Three Arrested for Plotting to Kill Danish Cartoonist

COPENHAGEN—Three people plotting to kill one of the 12 cartoonists behind the Prophet Muhammad drawings that sparked outrage and deadly protests in the Muslim world two years ago have been arrested in western Denmark, according to Danish police. Police said they arrested one Dane of Moroccan origin and two Tunisians, but they did not say which cartoonist was targeted. However, Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the drawings on September 30, 2005, said the suspects were planning to kill its cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. ''There were very concrete murder plans against Kurt Westergaard,'' said Carsten Juste, the paper's editor-in-chief. Westergaard and his wife had been living under police protection, according to Jyllands-Posten. PET, the police intelligence service, said the arrests were "preventive," and aimed "at an early phase" to stop the planning and the carrying out of the murder.