Police in Copenhagen say they have shot dead a man they believe was behind two deadly attacks in the Danish capital hours earlier.
Police officers take cover behind their patrol cars after one person was shot in the head and two policemen were shot in the arm and leg in Krystalgade. Photo: AFP
Police say they killed the man in the Norrebro district after he opened fire on them.
It came after one person was killed and two injured during a free speech debate in a cafe on Saturday.
In the second attack, a Jewish man was killed and two police officers wounded near the city's main synagogue.
Policemen secure the area around a building in Copenhagen where shots were fired. Photo: AFP
Police said video surveillance suggested the same man carried out both attacks. They did not believe any other people were involved.
"We assume that it's the same culprit behind both incidents, and we also assume that the culprit that was shot by the police task force... is the person behind both of these assassinations," Chief Police Inspector Torben Molgaard Jensen told a news conference.
He said police would maintain a high presence in the city.
The BBC correspondent in Copenhagen said the city had been on high alert after the shootings.
Early on Sunday, police said they had been keeping an address under observation in the district of Norrebro, waiting for the occupant to return.
When he appeared, he noticed the officers, pulled out a gun and opened fire, police said. They returned fire and shot him dead.
Norrebro is a predominantly immigrant district of Copenhagen, about five kilometres away from the synagogue where the shooting took place just hours earlier.
Police warned residents that it was not safe to be in the city centre, although they stressed that there was no curfew in force.
A massive manhunt was launched after the first shooting, which took place during a free speech debate attended by a Swedish cartoonist.
Officials said the gunman made his getaway by car, and a black Volkswagen Polo was later found abandoned a short distance from the scene, police said.
Police released photographs showing the alleged attacker apparently wearing a purple balaclava and thick puffer jacket.
A photograph of the alleged gunman released by police. Photo: AFP
Hours later, a gunman opened fire on Krystalgade street, about 5km from the scene of the first attack.
A man was shot in the head and was later confirmed to have died, and two police officers suffered injuries to their arms and legs. The attacker fled.
A Jewish community group quoted by AFP news agency later said that the man killed was Jewish and had been on security duty while a confirmation ceremony was taking place inside the synagogue.
Police spokesman Allan Wadsworth-Hansen said the first shooting was likely terror-related and "it makes a perfect sense to investigate it [the second shooting] down the same route".
Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt described the first attack as a "politically motivated" act of terrorism.
Blasphemy debate
Cartoonist Lars Vilks, who has faced death threats over his caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, said he believed he was the intended target of the attack. He was unhurt.
The French ambassador, Francois Zimeray, was also present during the attack.
A description of the debate at the cafe asked whether artists could "dare" to be blasphemous in the wake of attacks by Islamist gunmen in Paris last month against satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
In the French attacks, two gunmen opened fire at Charlie Hebdo's office, shooting dead 12 people. Two days later, a suspected accomplice of the militants took hostages at a Jewish shop, killing four of them.
All three attackers were eventually shot dead by police and security services.
- BBC -