OSLO, Oct. 15 (Reuters) - A man arrested in Norway on suspicion of plotting attacks and having links to al Qaeda was released from custody proclaiming his innocence on Friday.
David Jakobsen, a 32-year-old Uzbek with Norwegian residency, was one of three men arrested in July on suspicion of planning a bomb attack.
On Thursday an Oslo court said Jakobsen should be released but the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which decided in Jakobsen’s favour on Friday.
"The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal from the police," Jakobsen’s lawyer, Kjell Dahl, told Reuters.
The charges against Jakobsen remain open, however.
"I don’t know what people think, but I know I am innocent," he told Norwegian broadcaster NRK as he left jail.
Jakobsen and the other two people were charged with conspiring to commit terror in Norway. He pleaded not guilty.
One of the other suspects — a 39-year-old Norwegian citizen with Chinese Uighur origins named Mikael Davud — has admitted plans to blow up the Chinese embassy in Oslo, his lawyer and police have said. The third man, Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak, a 37-year-old Iraqi Kurd with Norwegian residency, confessed to planning an attack on the Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten, according to police.
Jyllands-Posten published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in 2005, drawing the ire of the Muslim world.
Bujak’s lawyer has said his client denies being part of a terror cell and insists he had nothing to do with al Qaeda.
Jakobsen worked as an informant for Norwegian police starting in November 2009, after he contacted authorities to say he was worried about Davud’s actions, his lawyer has said.
On leaving jail Jakobsen told NRK he was not bitter about his months behind bars because the Norwegian authorities "are just doing their job".
