COPENHAGEN, March 27, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Danish police question on Monday, March 27, leading imams Ahmad Akkari and Ahmad Abu Laban over controversial statements they made off-camera and were aired on French and Danish televisions.

"Police will translate the segments broadcast by the Danish television," Pierre Larsen, head of the Criminal Investigation Department in Copenhagen, told reporters.

In a documentary on the Danish cartoons that lampooned Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) and aired by French public broadcaster France 2 on Thursday, March 23, Akkari was secretly filmed threatening Naser Khader, a Danish member of parliament.

"If he becomes minister for immigration or integration, shouldn't we send two guys to blow him and his ministry up?"

Last week, Akkari, the spokesman of the European Committee for Honoring the Prophet, told IslamOnline.net he did not expect his "joke" would be taken seriously, stressing that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

He blasted the French cameraman for keeping his camera rolling while having a tea break.

Palestinian-born Abu Laben, who has been living in Denmark since 1985, was seen in the documentary saying that one would take pains to meet Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa as if he was planning a "martyr operation."

"I meant that this person was trying everything in his power to meet Moussa," Abu Laben, who last week attended the International Conference for Defending the Prophet in Bahrain, told IOL.

Larsen said police will try to question everyone who appeared in the French documentary.

"We must piece evidence together to reach a conclusion."

"I meant that this person was trying everything in his power to meet Amr Moussa," said Abu Laban.

Danish legal experts do not expect the investigation to develop into a case against the two imams.

They maintain that the statements did not violate the Danish penal code.

This is the first time that imams in Denmark are questioned in connection to criminal charges, according to IOL's correspondent.

The remarks have triggered a political storm in Denmark.

"It is truly shocking that an elected Danish politician can be the object of threats in this way," Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters last week.

"I take for granted that the police will investigate what happened and will deal with it."

Danish imams have accused the government of trying to demonize them in the eyes of the public because they "internationalized" the cartoons crisis after their calls to condemn the drawings had fallen on deaf ear at home.

They criticized Immigration Minister Rikke Hvilshoj’s call to exclude some of them from integration dialogue in the Scandinavian country as a punishment.

The anti-immigrant People's Party went even far by calling for revoking the citizenship of three imams, including Akkari.