Copenhagen attack: two men charged with aiding gunman

Danish police have charged two people with aiding the main suspect in the Copenhagen shootings that killed two people at the weekend.

The suspected gunman, a Danish national named by Danish media as Omar El-Hussein, was shot dead by police after he attacked a free speech debate in a cafe and a nearby synagogue.

Two people died in the attacks, including a film director and a synagogue guard. Five other people were wounded.

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The two men arrested by police have been charged with sheltering the gunman and helping him acquire and dispose of the murder weapon.

The first attack came at 4pm on Saturday afternoon and targeted a debate in a café about freedom of speech that was attended by, among others, the French ambassador and Lars Vilks, a controversial Swedish artist who received death threats after he depicted the Prophet Mohammed as a dog in 2007.

Film maker Finn Norgaard, 55, was shot dead at close range during the attack, but is believed to have been a "random victim" who had not made any documentaries that would have singled him out, The Guardian says. The other victim, Dan Uzan, 37, was a security guard at Copenhagen's main synagogue. He was killed several hours after the first attack while on duty at a bat mitzvah ceremony.

The head of Denmark’s security and intelligence service, Jens Madsen, said the 22-year-old gunman was known to police, and may have been trying to mount a copycat of the attacks on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris last month.

"We cannot yet say anything concrete about the motive … but are considering that he might have been inspired by the events in Paris some weeks ago," Madsen said.

The two men accused of aiding the suspect deny all charges.