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COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A Somali man armed with an axe and suspected of links with al Qaeda broke into the home of a Danish cartoonist whose drawings of the Prophet Mohammad caused global Muslim outrage and was shot and wounded by police.

Hours later, the 28-year-old was stretchered into court on Saturday and denied charges of trying to kill Kurt Westergaard.

The Somali also denied trying to murder a police officer at Westergaard's home in the town of Aarhus late on Friday after he broke into the house armed with a knife and an axe, police said.

Danish police intelligence said they believed the "attempted assassination ... is terror related" and accused the man, who was not named, of having links with Somalia's al-Shabaab militant group as well as al Qaeda militants.

The cartoonist, 74, pushed a panic button, fled to a safe room and was unhurt when police arrived. His grand-daughter was in the house during the attack. Police could not confirm reports he had tried to break down the safe room door with the axe.

Westergaard, who in 2005 depicted Prophet Mohammad with a bomb in his turban, has been under police protection since his caricatures of the Prophet led to death threats.

The Somali man appeared in court on a stretcher with a hand and leg in plaster casts due to gunshot wounds from a police officer who had narrowly dodged the axe thrown at him by the intruder who was trying to evade arrest, police said.

The accused did not speak in court, but denied the charges through his lawyer.