COPENHAGEN – A shooting outside a Copenhagen mosque after prayers to mark the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan has left one person dead and at least two people injured, police said Tuesday.
Police spokesman Lau Thygesen said the shooting took place outside the Muslim Culture Institute, located in the Danish capital's western Vesterbro district, and that the roads surrounding the mosque and a nearby car park have been cordoned off. Thygesen could not immediately provide more details.
A spokesman for the Muslim institute, who declined to give his name before hanging up the telephone, told The Associated Press that the incident took place on a parking lot next to the mosque as hundreds of people were leaving the 9 a.m. prayer service.
Kuran Qureshi, who attended the prayers, told Danish broadcaster TV2 in a live interview that he had witnessed two groups of "younger men having some kind of argument" on the parking lot just before the shooting started.
Qureshi said he had heard "15, maybe 20 shots," as he drove away from the area with his 10-year-old son. "I saw people, women, children ducking and hiding behind cars. It was really unpleasant."
The Muslim Cultural Institute was founded in the late 1970s by Pakistani immigrants. It includes a mosque as well as facilities where Islam is being taught to boys and girls in Danish.
