Norway bow and arrow attacks: Danish citizen charged as death toll reaches five
Police say suspect in his 30s lived in the town of Kongsberg, where the attacks took place
A 37-year-old Danish citizen has been arrested and charged after five people were killed and two others injured in an attack using a bow and arrows in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg, police said.
The suspect lived in the town and was transported to the nearby town of Drammen on Wednesday night, the police said in a statement issued early on Thursday.
Police were interrogating the suspect and he was talking, his defence lawyer said. “He is cooperating and is giving detailed statements regarding this event,” his lawyer, Fredrik Neumann, told public broadcaster NRK.
Neumann said his client was “deeply affected” and would be remanded in custody later on Thursday. He declined to comment further beyond saying the suspect’s mother was Danish, but it was not known whether he had ever lived there.
Øyvind Aas, the police chief in Kongsberg, about 70km south-west of the capital, Oslo, told a press conference earlier on Wednesday night that the alleged attacker had been arrested and “according to our information, is the only person implicated”.
Aas said there had been “a confrontation” between officers and the assailant, but he did not elaborate. Two people were in intensive care, including an off-duty police officer.
Aas declined to comment on press reports that a police officer had been shot in the back. He said the attacks happened over “a large area” of the town and several crime scenes were involved.
The acting prime minister, Erna Solberg, described reports of the attack as “horrifying” and said it was too early to speculate on the man’s motive.
“I understand that many people are afraid, but it’s important to emphasise that the police are now in control,” she told a news conference.
The prime minister-designate, Jonas Gahr Støre, who is expected to take office on Thursday, called the assault “a cruel and brutal act” in comments to Norwegian news agency NTB.
The alleged attacker’s motive was not yet clear, Aas said, but police were not ruling out terrorism. “One person has performed these actions alone,” he said. “It is natural to consider whether it is an act of terrorism. But the man has not been questioned and it is too early to come to any conclusion.”
NRK said police in Kongsberg, a municipality of about 28,000 people, received reports at 6.13pm local time that a man was walking around the town centre firing a bow and arrow.
A woman who witnessed some of the attack, Hansine, told TV2 she had heard a disturbance, then saw a woman taking cover and “a man standing on the corner with arrows in a quiver on his shoulder and a bow in his hand”.
“Afterwards, I saw people running for their lives. One of them was a woman holding a child by the hand,” she said.
A “large number” of police, as well as helicopters, dogs and armed response teams secured the area soon afterwards, Aas said, and the suspect was arrested about 30 minutes later after a brief confrontation with officers.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/13/several-killed-bow-and-arrow-attack-norway