COPENHAGEN: Danish prosecutors said today they had added a terrorism charge to one of attempted murder for a Somali man accused of trying to kill a cartoonist over a caricature of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

The 28-year-old is accused of breaking into the home of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard on January 1 and threatening to kill him with an axe and a knife.

“He was questioned this weekend and we decided afterwards to charge him with an attempted act of terrorism in addition to trying to kill Kurt Westergaard,” prosecutor Marian Thomsen told AFP.

The man had also been charged with attempted murder of a policeman who came to Westergaard’s rescue, and with using “violence against a law enforcement officer and violating the weapons law,” she said.

Danish police shot

the Somali in the hand and leg when they burst into Westergaard’s home to rescue him. He has denied the accusations.

The suspect, whose name has not been disclosed, has been remanded in custody until January 27 and risks a life sentence if found guilty on the

terrorism charge.

A date has not yet

been set for the trial, Thomsen said.

Westergaard, 74, was badly shaken by the attack at his home at Viby, near Aarhus, but was unharmed. He hid in the bathroom.