Two Sentenced in Muhammad Cartoon Case

(Oslo, Norway) Readers may recall Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist who created controversial images of Muslim prophet Muhammad in 2005 and since has had his life repeatedly threatened.

Here are two of the men who have been prosecuted, Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak, 39, and Mikael Davud, 40.


 
Bujak & Davud
The two face prison for plans to kill Westergaard.

Norwegian national Mikael Davud, a member of China's Uighur minority considered the mastermind behind the plot against the Jyllands-Posten daily, was sentenced to seven years behind bars.

Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak, an Iraqi Kurd residing in Norway, meanwhile received a three-and-a-half-year prison term.

According to the prosecution, the two men had in liaison with Al-Qaeda planned to use explosives against the offices of the Danish newspaper and to murder Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist behind the most controversial of the 12 drawings of the Muslim Prophet published in September 2005.

Westergaard's drawing, which has earned him numerous death threats and an assassination attempt, showed Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse.

The prosecution had demanded prison sentences of 11 and five years respectively.

A third man, David Jakobsen, was sentenced to four months prison for helping Bujak and Davud procure explosives materials.