|
 As a manhunt began, the 22-year-old went to ground. Nine hours
later he launched a second assault, this time on a synagogue. Police
eventually shot him dead, ending a rampage that left Danish
filmmaker Finn Noergaard and security guard Dan Uzan dead, and six
people wounded.
The attacks on Feb. 14 and 15 shocked Danes, who prize their
country's openness and sense of security. The country was further
confounded when it emerged that prison officials had warned
Denmark's domestic intelligence agency that Hussein was at risk of
being radicalized. If Denmark's prison system – famed for its focus
on rehabilitation and education over punishment – could not prevent
a young man from turning into an Islamist killer, then perhaps it
was not the model that many Danes believe it was. Parliament
demanded an inquiry into the attacks and how both the prison system
and the municipality had handled Hussein's case.
In interviews with dozens of people, including a former cellmate and
a source familiar with the as-yet unpublished official
investigation, Reuters has learned new details about Hussein and his
final months. His story seems to show how quickly people can be
radicalized and how easily they can slip through the net, even a net
as supportive and ostensibly secure as Denmark's.
 Those who knew Hussein both inside prison and out say the son of
Palestinian immigrants was a violent and troubled 22-year-old, but
not a long-term convert to radical Islam. For most of his life he
was a rebel without any obvious cause. He drank alcohol, listened to
Katy Perry and did not appear very religious.
Something changed in his final six months in prison, according to
the source familiar with the official investigation. In September,
according to the source, Hussein started talking about traveling to
Syria. Two months later another young inmate who spent time with
Hussein was found supporting extremist group Islamic State on social
media using a hidden cell phone. Hussein was increasingly
religiously observant, according to the source, and attacked another
inmate just weeks before his release.
Such rapid transformations are becoming more common, according to
Matthew Levitt, a counter-terrorism and radicalization expert at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Levitt, who last month
served as a prosecution witness at the trial of Boston marathon
bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, said that the rise of Islamic State means
"the pace of radicalization has gone into hyper-drive. It is no
longer a matter of months but of weeks or even days." Islamic
State's use of social media and the Internet, he said, allows people
to quickly learn its extremist doctrines without needing long
exposure to its supporters – in prison or elsewhere.
Much is still unknown. Police have arrested five other men. Lawyers
say they face a range of charges including suspicion of procuring
the weapons and bulletproof vest used by Hussein, and hiding
evidence between the two shootings. At the same time, the Danish
police have said that there is no indication Hussein was part of a
cell or had traveled to Syria or Iraq. Police declined to comment
for this story.
CRIME AND EDUCATION
Hussein was born in Denmark on Sept. 11, 1992, the elder of two
sons. Little is known about his Palestinian-born parents, who have
both kept low profiles since the shootings. Danish media have
reported that his mother was a biochemist.
Lise Egholm, the head of Hussein's primary school, said the boy did
not get along with other children and that Hussein's mother grew
frustrated by her son's behavior in primary school.
She said that the family moved to Jordan in 2006 when Hussein was
14. They lived in the north of the country for three years. It is
unclear whether Hussein's father was with them. After the family
returned to Denmark in 2009, Hussein's parents divorced.
At 17, Hussein was arrested for burglary. Over the next few years he
was in and out of institutions and prison, with convictions for
theft and possession of knives. He became an active Thai boxer for a
while and told a court in 2013 that he spent time at a gym.
The young man seemed to waver between a life of crime and an
apparent desire for education, work and stability.
"He came across as a sullen, scary and Terminator-ish type," said
Lotte Akiko Nielsen, who taught him English one-to-one at a school
in 2012. But once, when she praised his work, he smiled and seemed
genuinely surprised, she said. Another time, when a conversation
about Nelson Mandela and freedom fighters moved on to the Middle
East, he grew enraged.
"Out came a lot of anger. Something had been pent up," she said. "He
was angered by the treatment of people in Palestine, and the
injustice he'd seen and heard of in Jordan."
Nielsen remembers receiving a phone call from Hussein's mother in
2012. She had been asked to tell the teacher that her son had been
sentenced to prison. "He has a good head, but he gets into trouble
from time to time," she told Nielsen.
Hussein's lawyer told Nielsen it was unlikely the young man would
get out of prison in time to sit his exams. But after the exams, as
teachers began marking, Hussein ran into the school with a crumpled
hand-written synopsis and asked to take his exam belatedly. The
school said yes, and Hussein, who talked about prison systems in his
oral exam, earned a 12, the top mark, Nielsen said.
Social workers met the young man regularly on behalf of prison
officials in 2011 and 2012, and recommended social help for him.
Hussein turned it down.
In early 2013, just six months off finishing a two-year higher
preparatory examination that would have enabled him to apply for
university, he was arrested for stabbing a stranger on a train.
Explaining the stabbing in court, Hussein said he wrongly thought
the victim had previously attacked him. He also said he was high and
felt angst and paranoia. A court psychiatrist decided he did not
need a mental health assessment because "the suspect is found
mentally enlightened and no necessity for the suspect to be mentally
examined prior to the case ruling is found."
Sociologist Aydin Soei, who first met Hussein in 2011 when the youth
was a member of Brothas, a local gang, speculates that he may have
felt lost because he had been thrown out of the gang just before the
stabbing. According to Soei, the gang reckoned Hussein was out of
control and did not follow gang rules.
"When he no longer has an identity with a gang that provides an
alternative to society, he could be even more susceptible to seek an
identity with a radical interpretation of Islam," Soei said.
[to top of second column]
|
KATY PERRY AND A KORAN
In Vestre prison Hussein met Alexander, 20, who was serving time for
burglary.
Speaking in a Copenhagen cafe last month during a day release from
jail, Alexander said Hussein seemed like a regular, if troubled,
young man. He talked about drinking beer, smoking marijuana and
girls, Alexander said. He loved Katy Perry's song "Black Widow", and
would crank up the volume on the radio when it came on.
A prison source confirmed that Alexander and Hussein knew each other
in Vestre but officials declined comment, in line with Danish law.
Alexander, who asked that only his first name be used for fear of
reprisals from supporters of Hussein, said the young man did not
appear overly observant of his Muslim faith. At one point Hussein
got a copy of the Koran from the library but did not follow up on a
plan to read it with Alexander.
"We were supposed to read it together, but we never got around to it
before I was released," Alexander said.
The one time Hussein did engage on religion was during a discussion
about Sunnis and Shi'ites, the two main schools of Islam. "He told
me that Shi'ites are responsible for everything wrong with the
world,” Alexander said. "That Sunnis are the good ones. That's the
only time he ever raised a finger with religion.
"He didn't get aggressive, but rather resentful. He turned very
serious on this topic, and I felt that this wasn't something we
should discuss. He just had his opinion," Alexander said.
In January, according to local residents, Hussein moved into a
red-brick apartment block in Norrebro, a suburb of Copenhagen. The
glass in the main entrance door to the block is cracked and blue
paint is flaking on the staircase. But graffiti is rare and the area
boasts soccer fields, basketball courts, and climbing frames for
children.
In the days before he attacked the cafe and synagogue, Hussein
contacted the municipality for help finding permanent housing and a
job. He was, it seemed, planning for the future.
Hussein's father told Danish media he was "as shocked as everyone
else," when he heard the news from the police, though he has
declined to comment further.
Former prison mate Alexander was also stunned. "Omar was a good man,
and I saw him as a friend. I respected him, and I was shocked and
disappointed when I found out ... He never talked about shooting
innocent people. He never talked about killing cops. We joked about
it, as you do in prison. But what happened, I could never have
imagined. I still can't believe he did it."
NESTS OF RADICALIZATION?
When Islamist gunmen attacked the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in
Paris in January, Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
quickly claimed responsibility for the assault.
There were no such claims after Copenhagen, and police still have no
comment on Hussein's motives.
The April edition of Dabiq, a magazine produced by Sunni militant
group Islamic State, carried a story honoring Hussein, but did not
take responsibility for his actions. The magazine called him Abu
Ramadan Al-Muhajir, and linked him to a Facebook page with that name
and a picture of a bare-fanged white wolf as its profile photo.
The Center for Terror Analysis within the Danish Security and
Intelligence Service (PET) said in a threat assessment in March that
Hussein may have been "motivated by current militant Islamist
propaganda issued by IS (Islamic State) and other terror
organizations." PET declined to comment on Hussein for this story.
Soon after the attacks, the agency said that the prison service had
told it Hussein was at risk of radicalization. But PET said it had
no reason to believe that Hussein was planning an attack.
In all, prison authorities have reported 60 prisoners to PET between
the end of 2012 and the middle of March 2015, the Danish Justice
minister said in a statement last month. PET estimates that around
115 Danish citizens have traveled to Syria, mostly to fight for
Islamic State.
The official investigation found not only that Hussein had started
talking about traveling to Syria but that he would grow angry when
he saw people wearing skimpy clothing on television. Sixteen days
before he was released he assaulted another inmate for no apparent
reason, according to the source familiar with the investigation.
Wasseem Hussain, Vestre's imam, told Reuters that the Danish prison
system is built in a way that should curb radicalization. "We're not
storing people in vast numbers, where they can do what they want."
Wasseem said that guards are encouraged to be friendly rather than
intimidating, and prison offers education and help in applying for
jobs.
Four days before the shootings, Hussein returned to prison to pick
up his belongings. Two days later he missed a scheduled meeting to
help find him housing. On Feb. 14 he attacked.
Danish and international media have speculated that Hussein may have
come under the sway of Sam Mansour, a Danish-Moroccan serving time
in Vestre for inspiring terrorist acts. But Lissi Kristensen, a
priest working in Copenhagen prisons including Vestre, said contact
between inmates is closely monitored by staff to prevent young men
from interacting with known radicals. A lawyer for Mansour and the
source close to the investigation said that Mansour had never met
Hussein.
(Additional reporting by Sabina Zawadzki; Edited by Simon Robinson)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
