Somali denies Danish cartoonist Westergaard axe attack

Kurt Westergaard locked himself in a panic room and was unharmed in the attack

A Somali man has denied trying to murder Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who was behind caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Prosecutors say Mohamed Geele, 29, broke into Mr Westergaard's home carrying an axe.

Mr Geele admitted breaking in with an illegal weapon when he appeared in court in Aarhus on Wednesday.

But he denied charges of attempted murder and terrorism.

Kurt Westergaard's cartoon of a turban bomb was one of 12 published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 that prompted protests among Muslims around the world.

Mr Westergaard first went into hiding but then decided to live openly in a heavily fortified house.

On New Year's Day in 2010, he said his front door was broken down by an attacker while he was in the house with his five-year-old grand-daughter.

He rushed into a panic room and called the police who arrived minutes later and shot and wounded a man.

The cartoons still appear to be a source of anger. Last month Danish police arrested five suspected militants for planning an alleged attack on the newspaper that originally published them, Jyllands-Posten.