Danish police have accused two men of helping the gunman who murdered two people in separate attacks in Copenhagen.

The suspected gunman, named by Danish media as Omar El-Hussein, 22, was shot dead by police after he attacked a free speech debate and a synagogue.

A film director and a Jewish man were killed and five police wounded.

The two men are charged with providing and disposing of the weapon, as well as with helping the gunman to hide.

Michael Juul Eriksen, a defence lawyer for one of the men, said they denied the charges.

The suspects, who have not been named, appeared in a closed custody hearing on Monday.

Omar El-Hussein, the Danish national suspected of carrying out Saturday’s attacks, was known to police and had convictions for violent offences and dealing in weapons.

El-Hussein was released from prison two weeks before the attacks after reportedly serving a two-year sentence for grievous bodily harm.

Michael Gjorup, head of the country’s prison and probation service, told Danish media that authorities were concerned about changes in El-Hussein’s behaviour in prison and passed on information to Danish intelligence before the attack.

The head of Danish intelligence, Jens Madsen, acknowledged that El-Hussein had been “on the radar” of his services.

Mr Madsen said investigators were working on the theory that he could have been inspired by the shootings in Paris last month.

The attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine, a kosher supermarket and a policewoman claimed 17 lives.

Gang Activities

Denmark’s foreign minister, Martin Lidegaard, rejected suggestions that El-Hussein may have visited the Middle East but said he may have been radicalised while in prison.

“We are not talking about a foreign fighter who has been abroad fighting in Syria or Iraq,” Mr Lidegaard said.

“We are talking about a man who was known by the police due to his gang activities, his criminal activities inside Denmark. Whether he has been radicalised inside jail where he was just released from or he has been moving around in these environments before is as yet rather unclear.”

In the first of the two shootings on Saturday, at a free-speech debate in the east of the city, film director Finn Norgaard, 55, was killed.

In an audio recording of the shooting, the gunman can be heard interrupting the debate and firing dozens of shots.

Hours later, Dan Uzan, a 37-year-old long-time member of the Copenhagen synagogue, was shot dead while on security duty outside the building. Eighty people were celebrating a girl’s bat mitzvah, or coming of age, in a hall behind the synagogue at the time.

The gunman fled by car but was traced by police to the city’s Norrebro district. He opened fire when confronted and was fatally shot by officers.

The condition of the five police officers wounded in the attacks is unknown.

Denmark and France remain on high alert.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Monday that the deployment of thousands of police and soldiers at sites across the country, imposed after the January attacks, would stay in place “as long as the threat remains so high”.

Who Were The Victims?

Finn Noergaard, 55, was struck in the chest by a bullet at the free speech debate. The documentary film-maker had a keen interest in the problems faced by the offspring of migrant communities.

His friend Malene Trock told Berlinske daily he was “open-minded” and “cosmopolitan”. Producer Torben Larsen is quoted by the AP news agency as saying Mr Noergaard was “a very generous and warm person”.

Dan Uzan, 37, was shot dead while standing guard at a Copenhagen synagogue.

He had studied at the city’s university and was a keen basketball player, active in a local team. Denmark’s chief rabbi, Jair Melchior, said Mr Uzan was an “amazing guy – irreplaceable”.

Copenhagen Attacks

• Saturday afternoon: gunman attacks free speech debate hosted by controversial cartoonist Lars Vilks
• One man killed, three police injured
• Gunman flees by car – suspected vehicle later found abandoned
• Gunman calls taxi to take him to address in Norrebro district
• Police use information from taxi driver to identify address and release CCTV images
• After midnight on Sunday: gunman opens fire outside a Copenhagen synagogue, killing a Jewish man and wounding two police
• 03:50 GMT Sunday: Police keeping Norrebro address under observation come under fire from a man
• They fire back, shooting him dead
• Police arrest two men on Sunday and later charge them with helping the gunman