Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks walks in the streets of Stockholm
A Colorado woman who converted to Islam last year and was lured to Europe by online extremists was among seven people arrested in Ireland in connection with a suspected plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist, her parents said on Saturday.
The arrest of Jamie Paulin Ramirez, a 31-year-old mother, confirmed by a U.S. law enforcement source who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, marks the second American woman linked to such a conspiracy in recent days.
The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it has 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.
Separately, Irish police said on Tuesday they had detained seven individuals as part of an investigation into a plot to assassinate cartoonist Lars Vilks of Sweden in retaliation for a drawing that depicted the Prophet Mohammad with dog's body.
That cartoon is said to have prompted an Iraqi group linked to al Qaeda to place a $100,000 bounty on Vilk's life. Three of those arrested were released late on Friday, police said.
U.S. officials have declined to comment on whether the indictment of "JihadJane," who has been in U.S. custody since last October, was connected to the suspected Vilks plot.
But Ramirez's mother and stepfather, Christine and George Mott of Leadville, Colorado, said they believe their daughter was recruited by LaRose, who they say introduced Ramirez to an Algerian man she married after moving to Ireland in September.
"These terrorists came into my home through the Internet, uninvited, and have ripped my family apart," Christine Mott told Reuters in a telephone interview from the family's home in Leadville, a small, picturesque town in the Rocky Mountains about 80 miles southwest of Denver.
SON IN FOSTER CARE
The Motts said their daughter took her six-year-old son with her to Ireland, and that he had been placed in foster care since Ramirez's arrest on Tuesday with six others, including her newly wed Algerian husband. Her parents described the Algerian as "JihadJane's main contact over there."
Of the four men and three women arrested in Ireland, aged mid-20s to late-40s, police said one man and two women were released from custody in the southern county of Waterford on Friday. Christine Mott said she was informed on Saturday that her daughter was among those released.
The Motts said Ramirez had been living with her son in their home and studying to be a nurse practitioner when she stunned relatives by announcing her conversion to Islam.
Christine Mott said her daughter had been conversing on the Internet with individuals who seemed to be extremists. She also began covering herself with a traditional head scarf, or hijab, worn by devout Muslim women, her mother said.
In September, Ramirez vanished, prompting the family to file a missing-persons report with local police. George Mott, himself a convert to Islam, said he talked to FBI agents and handed over Ramirez's computer to them as evidence of the parents' concerns that she had fallen in with extremists.
In October, Ramirez called her parents from Ireland to report that she and her son were safe and living there.
Christine Mott said she has talked regularly with her grandson until this week, and was devastated when he told her in a recent conversation that "'We hate Christians,'" leading to a heated quarrel with her daughter over the phone.
She said her main concern now was to get her grandson back to the United States.
Vilks, who said he has prepared a secure room in his house with barricades in case of any break-in, told Reuters 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 he broke into the home of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and threatened him with an ax. A Westergaard cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad with a turban shaped like a bomb sparked outrage across the Muslim world in 2005, with at least 50 people killed in riots in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
A fourth Muslim arrested over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who drew the Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog has been released without charge, Irish police said Saturday.
The woman was detained Tuesday as part of a group of seven people over an alleged plot to assassinate Lars Vilks, who has a 100,000-dollar (74,000-euro) bounty on his head from an Al-Qaeda-linked group.
Three men remain in custody. Two other women and a man were freed without charge Friday.
Police said files on all four suspects freed so far will be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), meaning charges could still be brought.
"A female arrested on March 9 and detained at Thomastown Garda (police) station (in southeast Ireland) has been released from custody this afternoon," said a brief statement.
Those originally arrested were three Algerians, a Libyan, a Palestinian, a Croatian and a US national, a police source told AFP on Thursday. They ranged in age from mid 20s to late 40s.
The Wall Street Journal reported that one of the women detained was 31-year-old US citizen Jamie Paulin-Ramirez.
The controversy started when Swedish regional daily Nerikes Allehanda published Vilks' satirical cartoon in 2007.
This prompted protests by Muslims in the town of Oerebro, west of Stockholm, where the newspaper is based, while Egypt, Iran and Pakistan made formal complaints.
An Al-Qaeda front organisation then offered 100,000 dollars to anyone who murdered Vilks -- with an extra 50,000 if his throat was slit -- and 50,000 dollars for the death of Nerikes Allehanda editor-in-chief Ulf Johansson.
The row echoed the uproar caused in Denmark by the publication in 2005 of 12 drawings focused on Islam, including one showing the Prophet Mohammed with a turban in the shape of a bomb.
This week, the Irish Independent newspaper reported that a suspect known as "JihadJane", the online name of Colleen LaRose, spent two weeks in Ireland last September on a "fact-finding trip" before her arrest in October.
LaRose has been indicted for recruiting jihadist fighters in the US, Europe and Asia in a bid to carry out terror plots.
US prosecutors said LaRose had agreed to carry out the murder of a Swedish resident, pledging "only death will stop me."
The US Justice Department has declined to say if LaRose was connected to the alleged plot to kill Vilks.
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