Violence in Norway
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Man kills five people with a bow and arrow
6 pictures Man with a bow and arrow kills five people in Norway
Photo: dpa / Håkon Mosvold Larsen
Update Oslo Ten years after the Breivik attacks, people are attacked in a small Norwegian town. According to the police, five of them are dead and two others are injured. During the night, details of the suspect who had been caught were revealed.
After the violence in Norway, which left five dead and two injured, the police released details about the arrested suspect. The police said early Thursday morning that he is a 37-year-old Dane who lives in the small town of Kongsberg in southern Norway. He was charged. The man was arrested on Wednesday evening. A man armed with a bow and arrow had previously attacked people in Kongsberg. The police assume that he acted alone. However, the background to the act initially remained unclear. A terrorist motive could not initially be ruled out either.
The authorities had decided to publish the first information about the suspect in order to counter rumors in online networks, the police said in a statement. Several people who had nothing to do with the crime had already been affected by the misinformation that was spread.
According to the police, the attacks occurred in several locations in the city of Kongsberg, which is around 80 kilometers southwest of the capital Oslo. The perpetrator moved over a larger area, the investigators said. The incident occurred on the eve of the new Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre’s inauguration.
According to the responsible police chief Øyvind Aas, there was a “confrontation” between the suspect and the police officer, but he did not provide any details. However, the suspect was arrested 20 minutes after the police were alerted in the early evening.
The injured were taken to the hospital, said Aas. You would be in the intensive care unit. Aas said he had no evidence that their lives were in danger, however. One of the two is a police officer who was not on duty.
At 6.13 p.m., several people reported to the police that an armed man was moving through the city and shooting people with a bow and arrow, Aas said. Several media reported a supermarket as a place of the action.
A resident of Kongsberg told NTB news agency that she heard the alarm go off in a supermarket. She didn’t think much about it. But then she also heard police cars and ambulances. The police searched garages and backyards in the city center with flashlights in the evening.
Because of the incident, the police were temporarily armed, the police directorate announced late in the evening. It is a readiness measure – there are currently no indications of a change in the threat situation in the country. The majority of the Norwegian police officers are usually not armed. The Norwegian secret service PST was also informed of the incident.
Norway’s outgoing Prime Minister Erna Solberg was “shocked” by the fact. “Our thoughts go first of all to those affected and their relatives,” said Solberg late on Wednesday evening at a press conference in Oslo that was called at short notice. She will be replaced by the Social Democrat Jonas Gahr Støre at the head of government on Thursday after her election defeat a month ago. The act did not affect the change of government, said Solberg.
“The reports coming from Kongsberg tonight are horrific,” said Solberg. “The perpetrator committed terrible acts against several people. It’s a very dramatic situation that hits the community in Kongsberg hard. ”It is important to underline that nothing is known about the incident.
Kongsberg’s mayor, Kari Anne Sand, was also stunned. “This is a tragedy for all concerned. Words fail me, ”she told the Norwegian newspaper“ Verdens Gang ”.
The head of government in neighboring Sweden, Stefan Löfven, wrote on Twitter that his thoughts were with the victims and their families. It is a “terrible attack”.
The incident brings back bad memories: Ten years ago Norway suffered the worst terrorist attack in its modern history. On July 22, 2011, right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik set off a bomb hidden in a white van in the government district of Oslo, killing eight people.
Then he drove to the island of Utøya, about 30 kilometers away, where he pretended to be a police officer and opened fire on the participants in the annual summer camp of the youth organization of the Social Democratic Labor Party.
69 people, mostly teenagers and young adults, were killed on Utøya. Breivik named right-wing extremist and Islamophobic motives for his actions. He was sentenced in August 2012 to the then maximum sentence of 21 years with a minimum imprisonment of ten years.
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