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Police cordon in Kongsberg: The perpetrator probably killed with stabbing weapons
Photo: TERJE PEDERSEN / EPA
Five people died last Wednesday when an archer was assassinated in Kongsberg, Norway.
According to police, it is now clear that the people were allegedly killed with stabbing weapons.
The current state of the investigation indicates that the perpetrator initially fired a series of arrows to injure people, said police inspector Per Thomas Omholt at a press conference in Kongsberg.
He probably didn't have arrows and bows with him later.
In one street he then killed the five people with two stabbing weapons - some in their own four walls, others outside in the open.
The investigations are still in an early phase.
Victims chosen at random
In the small town in the south of the Scandinavian country, the man had killed five people and injured three others.
The 37-year-old Danish native Espen Andersen B. has admitted the act.
For the time being, everything indicates that all victims were selected at random, said Omholt.
He left open what kind of stabbing weapon it was in order not to influence witnesses, as it was said.
It is still the most likely hypothesis that the offender's motive can be traced back to a mental illness, said Omholt.
Around 60 witnesses have now been questioned, and a total of around 140 people have been spoken to.
A court ordered the alleged perpetrator to be detained in a medical facility for four weeks.
Norwegian police released the names of the victims, including four women and one man, on Saturday.
Among them is a woman from Germany, as the Federal Foreign Office confirmed at the weekend.
ptz / dpa