Two charged over cartoonist murder plot

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Two men have been charged over an alleged plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist who drew the Prophet Mohammad with the body of a dog.

Irish police say one had been charged with immigration offences and the other with making threatening phone calls.

Police said a third man, among four men and three women arrested last week as part of an investigation into a "conspiracy to murder an individual in another jurisdiction", was released earlier on Monday.

An Irish security source said that the man charged with making threatening phone calls was a 44-year-old originally from Algeria and the man charged with immigration offences was 32-years-old and originally from Libya.

A separate security source confirmed to Reuters last week the alleged plot under investigation in Ireland was to murder Lars Vilks. In 2007 an Iraqi group linked to al Qaeda offered a $US100,000 reward for his murder.

One of the women arrested was identified by a US law enforcement source as Jamie Paulin Ramirez, a 31-year-old mother from Colorado in the United States.

Her parents told Reuters she had converted to Islam last year and had been lured to Europe by online extremists.

Ramirez' arrest made her the second US woman linked to the conspiracy. On Tuesday the US Justice Department said it had charged Colleen LaRose, a suburban Philadelphia woman who used the online pseudonyms "Fatima LaRose" and "JihadJane," with plotting to kill an unnamed Swedish man and using the internet to enlist co-conspirators.

Ramirez's parents said her new Algerian husband was among those arrested and that he was "JihadJane's" main contact in Ireland.

Vilks, who said he has prepared a secure room in his house with barricades in case of any break-in, said on Wednesday he had received more death threats through internet messages since the arrests were made.

In January, a Somali man was indicted on charges of terrorism and attempted murder for breaking into the home of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and threatening him with an axe.

A cartoon by Westergaard in 2005 which depicted the Prophet Mohammad with a turban shaped like a bomb sparked outrage across the Muslim world, with at least 50 people killed in riots in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Most Muslims consider any depiction of the founder of Islam as offensive.

- Reuters