COPENHAGEN: Danish prosecution authorities said Friday that six people had been remanded in custody overnight after a police swoop they said prevented a terror attack.
Police have not given any details about the target of the alleged plot but said late Thursday that there was no direct link to the arrest the same day of four suspected Hamas members in Germany accused of preparing an attack against Jewish targets in Europe.
Israel had said on Thursday that the suspects in Denmark were acting "on behalf of Hamas", which has not been confirmed by Danish authorities.
"Six people were remanded in custody overnight until Jan 9 — four of them in absentia. One person has been released," the Danish prosecution service wrote on X, without providing further details.
Suspects can be remanded in custody in absentia in order to obtain an international arrest warrant, which suggests the four may be abroad.
The proceedings were held behind closed doors and no details of the case have been made public.
Danish police said Thursday that they had arrested three people in Denmark.
"It was a group that was planning an act of terror," Flemming Drejer, head of operations at the PET intelligence service, told a news conference.
Danish news agency Ritzau and public broadcaster DR said the arrests were linked to the organised crime gang Loyal to Familia, which is banned in Denmark.
Ritzau and DR said the three arrested were two men and a young woman. One of the two men was released, they said.
Three men arrested in Germany and a fourth in the Netherlands on Thursday were said to have begun preparing a weapons cache in the German capital where arms would be "kept in a state of readiness in view of potential terrorist attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe", German federal prosecutors said in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Thursday that Danish security forces had "thwarted an attack, the goal of which was to kill innocent civilians on European soil".
"The Hamas organisation has been working relentlessly and exhaustively to expand its lethal operations to Europe, and thereby constitute a threat to the domestic security of these countries," Netanyahu said. — AFP