Danes face jail for 'terrorism' T-shirts

A sixth defendant was jailed for 60 days for allowing the company to use his server for its website while a seventh defendant was acquitted. He had put up posters on his hot-dog stand to promote the T-shirts.

The court also ordered the company's stocks of T-shirts to be confiscated and their website to be seized.

The company started selling the T-shirts in January 2006, to challenge Denmark's terror laws. The T-Shirts, caps and other promotion material were in support of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Both groups are considered terrorist organisations by the EU and the US.

In December 2007, the Copenhagen City Court cleared the group of all charges, saying the activities of FARC and PFLP did not constitute terrorism under Danish law. But the High Court ruled otherwise.

"We are very surprised with this ruling … It is a very provincial decision," defence lawyer Thorkild Hoeyer said. He called the ruling "a totally insane verdict," which he is now going to appeal to the highest court - and, if not successful, to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights

"Apparently T-shirts has become terrorism. The sentence demonstrates that the terror-legislation doesn't work," said Bobby Schultz, PR-responsible for Fighters+Lovers.

Colombia's defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos, called the ruling "an important message to any citizen of the world who collaborates with terrorism: They won't have a defence anywhere," he said, according to AP.

The company had collected some €3,000, but police seized the money before it was transferred to the Colombian and Palestinian organisations.