A prominent Danish writer who heads a controversial group that claims free speech is under threat from Islam escaped an attempt on his life in Copenhagen, the police said.
Lars Hedegaard, a well-known historian in Denmark, was able to fend off the attack after the gunman misfired, and was unharmed, the police said in statement yesterday.
The incident happened when Hedegaard, 70, opened his front door in the capital’s Frederiksberg neighbourhood to a man pretending to be delivering a package and wearing a jacket showing the logo of the Danish postal service.
The attacker “fired a shot with his gun aimed at the victim’s head” but he missed, the statement read.
A struggle then ensued between the two men and the attacker fled the scene, it added.
Hedegaard is the president of Denmark’s Free Press Society, an organisation that claims free speech is “being threatened, primarily by religious and ideological interests and international pressure groups.”
“I attacked him and hit him on the head,” Hedegaard told the daily Politiken about the assassination attempt.
In an earlier statement, the police said the gunmen’s weapon jammed as he tried to fire off two more shots.
Based on eyewitness descriptions, the police said the attacker was a bearded man aged around 25, who was about 1.80 metres (5 feet 10 inches) tall.
The chairman of the Free Press Society’s Swedish arm, Ingrid Carlqvist, who spoke to Hedegaard after the attack, told AFP he described the assailant as someone of “Arab appearance”.
“It’s a miracle that he’s alive,” she said.