Mohammed Cartoon updates

From Michelle Malkin:

The lying, jihadist Danish imam who helped instigate the Mohammed cartoon riots by touring the Middle East with bogus pictures it attributed the Jyllands-Post has died (hat tip: Sugiero).

Abu Laban had cancer:

Ahmed Abu Laban, Denmark's most prominent Muslim leader and a central figure in last year's uproar over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, has died from cancer, his organization said Friday. He was 60. Abu Laban died late Thursday at the Hvidovre Hospital in Copenhagen after battling lung cancer, said Kasem Ahmad, a spokesman for the Islamic Faith Community.

A Palestinian immigrant who became Denmark's leading imam, Abu Laban was thrust into the international spotlight during the firestorm over the prophet cartoons, when he accused Denmark of being disrespectful of Islam and Muslim immigrants. He angered many Danes by seeking support from the Middle East in his fight against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which first published the controversial cartoons. Many blamed him and other Islamic clerics in Denmark for stirring up anger that triggered massive and sometimes violent anti-Danish protests in Muslim countries in January and February last year. The 12 drawings, one of which depicted Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb, offended many Muslims because Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depiction of the prophet for fear it could lead to idolatry.

The CT Blog revealed how a delegation of Danish Muslims, led by Copenhagen imam Abu Laban, toured the Middle East in December and showed fabricated cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in a very offensive fashion, even though the pictures had never appeared on Jyllands Posten. The controversy has now exploded in Denmark. Friday night Danish public television, DR, ran two interesting stories about Abu Laban, the man who organized the delegation's trip to the Middle East. While the first profiled him, showing his extensive links to the Egyptian group Gamaa Islamiya, the second showed his double-talk. Abu Laban, in fact, was first shown speaking on Danish television condemning the boycott of Danish goods (in English), then shown interviewed on al Jazeera, cheerfully commenting on the effectiveness of the boycott (in Arabic).

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