The deadly shooting outside a shul in Copenhagen is a “totally unacceptable” attack against the Jewish community which constitutes a dramatic break in the long-standing tradition of good relations between Denmark and its Jews, Denmark’s ambassador to Israel said Sunday.
Speaking to Army Radio, Jesper Vahr offered his condolences to the family of the young Jewish security guard who was killed in the attack, and said the government in Copenhagen was taking steps to ensure the safety of the country’s Jewish community in the future.
“This [shooting] is very un-Danish, this is not the sense of security which is normally part and parcel of our society,” Vahr said. “Our safety and security issues go above anything else. We take security around synagogues very seriously.”
The identity of the victim of the attack was not made public, though Denmark’s former chief rabbi confirmed Sunday that he was a member of Copenhagen’s Jewish community.
The Danish ambassador went on to warn that while he considered the attack to be a form of terrorism, one should be careful not to single out entire communities based on an individual act.
“I don’t have any further information on [the attack] at this point in time,” Vahr said. “Denmark has prided itself on being a country of tolerance, and it is important that we do not draw a conclusion from the individual [attacker] to the community.”
The attack outside a shul in the Danish capital came only hours after a shooting at a free speech event late Saturday night in Copenhagen.
The twin shootings, which left a total of two dead and five injured, were “clearly acts of terrorism,” Rabbi Yitzchok Loewenthal, a representative of the Chabad movement in Copenhagen, told Israel Radio in an interview early Sunday.
Police couldn’t say whether the shootings were connected, but didn’t rule it out. In both shootings, the gunman got away.
“We are looking for two perpetrators,” police spokesman Allan Wadsworth-Hansen told reporters.
Later Sunday, Copenhagen police fired shots near a train station, killing one person. “The police have fired shots at Noerrebro Station. One person is hit,” Copenhagen police wrote on Twitter. Police later added that they were “investigating if the person could be behind the shootings at Krudttoenden and the synagogue in Krystalgade.”
The first shooting happened shortly before 4 p.m. Saturday. Danish police said the gunman used an automatic weapon to shoot through the windows of the Krudttoenden cultural center during a panel discussion on freedom of expression following the Paris attacks. A 55-year-old man attending the event was killed, while three police officers were wounded. Two belonged to the Danish security service PET, which said the circumstances surrounding the shooting “indicate that we are talking about a terror attack.”
The gunman then fled in a carjacked Volkswagen Polo that was later found a few kilometers away, police said.
After searching for the first gunman for hours, police reported the second shooting in downtown Copenhagen after midnight Sunday. Wadsworth-Hansen said that gunman opened fire at two police officers outside the synagogue. They were wounded in the arms and legs but were not in life-threatening condition, while a civilian man was killed. The gunman fled on foot.
Police initially said there were two gunmen at the cultural center but later said they believed there was only one shooter. They described him as 25 to 30 years old with an athletic build and carrying a black automatic weapon. They released a blurred photograph of the suspect wearing dark clothes and a scarf covering part of his face.
Parts of the Danish capital were cordoned off after the shooting near the synagogue but “it’s not a question of a general curfew. People are allowed to travel around Copenhagen, safely,” Wadsworth-Hansen said.
Read more: The Times of Israel
{Matzav.com Newscenter}
