Severe penalties: withdrawal of Danish citizenship, imprisonment, and permanent deportation on charges of aiding and abetting attempted murder.
Copenhagen police released a press statement on Tuesday regarding harsh sentences handed down to two men convicted of attempted murder. A 26-year-old man and a 29-year-old man admitted that in 2024 they ordered an accomplice to carry out a murder in Copenhagen on their behalf – but the attempt failed as the accomplice was arrested beforehand.
A 29-year-old man was sentenced to an additional 15 years and 8 months in prison, stripped of his Danish citizenship, and ordered to be permanently deported from Denmark, while a 26-year-old man was sentenced to 16 years in prison for murder. Both men were also banned from residing in North Copenhagen (København N) for 10 years.
The two men, one a full gang member and the other a member of a support group, admitted that in September of last year they coordinated and ordered an accomplice to murder a member of a rival gang. The murder was to be carried out in or around Blågårds Plads.
The two men admitted in court that they had ordered an accomplice to commit a murder on their behalf in September 2024. The accomplice arrived in Denmark on September 7, 2024, where the convicted man provided him with accommodation and food.
In the following days, in addition to housing and food, they also provided the accomplice with an electric bicycle for transportation to and from the crime scene, and gave him a gun to use in the murder he was ordered to commit on their behalf.
On September 10, 2024, at approximately 11 p.m., they sent their accomplice to Indre Nørrebro to carry out the murder, but the plan failed when Copenhagen police arrested the accomplice at 1:20 a.m. on September 11, 2024, and he has been in custody ever since.
This is an extremely serious form of crime, a fact reflected in the court's ruling. While the so-called "exemption from confession" is often observed in confession cases, the court found no justification for it, according to special prosecutor Laura Birch of the Copenhagen police prosecution service.
The 26-year-old man had been in custody since September 12, 2024, while the 29-year-old man had been in custody since October 20, 2024. The case against the accomplice is scheduled to begin in early 2026.
