Kongsberg: Norwegian authorities said on Thursday went on a bow and arrows by a man who killed five people in a small town seemed to be a terrorist act, a surprising attack in the Scandinavian country where the crime of violence was rare.
The police identified an attacker when Espen Andersen Braathen, a 37-year-old Danish citizen, who was arrested on Wednesday night.
They said he used a bow and arrow and maybe another weapon to target people randomly at the supermarket and other locations in Kongsberg, a city around 26,000 where he lived, before he was arrested by the police on the road.
The police said they believed he acted alone.
“The whole action seems to be an act of terror,” said Hans Sverre Sjoevold, head of the Norwegian domestic intelligence service, known as PST.
“We don’t know what the motivation of the perpetrators is,” Sjoevold said in English.
He said the suspect was known before by PST, but he refused to describe.
OLE B Saeverud Regional Police Chief described the man as a Muslim and said there “had previously worried the man who had been committed.” Police said four women and one person aged between 50 and 70 were killed.
Three other people were injured, police said.
Braathen was arrested on initial charges and will face formal charges on Friday.
The police were told for a human shooting arrow around 6:15 a.m.
(local Timne) and arrested him about 30 minutes later.
The Regional Prosecutor said that after the arrest of the man, he “clearly described what he had done.
He claimed to have killed five people.” Norwegian media reported that the previous suspect had been convicted of drug theft and ownership of drugs, and last year the local court provided a detention order Ordered it to stay away from his parents for a period of six months after he threatened to kill one of them.
Mass murder rarely occurred in Norway, and the attack drawing comparison with the worst peace massacre in the country a decade ago, when the right-wing domestic extremist killed 77 people with bombs, rifles and guns.