While the Scandinavian kingdom is still in shock from the attack which left five dead and two injured on Wednesday, October 13, investigators have partially lifted the veil on the profile of the suspect.
Potentially radicalized
He is a 37-year-old Dane living in Kongsberg, a town in south-eastern Norway where the attack took place.
"This is about a convert to Islam," Norwegian police official Ole Bredrup Saeverud said at a press briefing in Tønsberg on Thursday.
“There have been fears related to radicalization previously,” he added, adding that these fears dated back to 2020 and before, and that they had given rise to police monitoring.
He acted alone
"We are relatively certain that he acted alone," said Ole Bredrup Saeverud. "We decided to confirm this information because many rumors circulate on social networks around the perpetrator of the attack, some [implicating] people having no connection with the serious acts committed", explained the police. Investigators, however, did not confirm information from the TV2 channel which stated that the alleged perpetrator "has a medical history". Heard by the investigators during the night, he must be presented before a judge during the day with a view to his placement in pre-trial detention.
“He is cooperative.
He explains himself in detail and cooperates well with the police, ”his lawyer told reporters.
According to TV2, he would have admitted the facts, while another Danish media, the NTB news agency, for its part claims that the arc is not the only weapon used to commit this crime.
What motive?
Police are still assessing the motive for the attack.
"We are investigating, among other things, to clarify whether it is a terrorist attack," said Ole Bredrup Saeverud.
The victims are four women and a man, aged between 50 and 70, he said.
Norwegian media wonder why the police took more than half an hour to respond after the first alerts.
The attack occurred in several places over a large area of Kongsberg, including a supermarket.
It was there that a policeman, who was not on duty at the time, was injured.
The press published photos of black arrows, visibly competitive, lying on the ground or, for one of them, firmly embedded in a wall.
The circumstances of the attack
A few testimonies are starting to emerge. A woman, Hansine, who partially witnessed the attack, told TV2 that she heard a commotion and saw a woman taking cover as well as "a man around the corner with arrows in a quiver on the shoulder and a bow in the hand ”. “Afterwards, I saw people running for their lives, including a woman who held a child by the hand,” she testified to the channel.
The attack, with an unusual modus operandi, occurred on the last day of the mandate of Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who is due to hand over the reins this Thursday to a new center-left government led by Jonas Gahr Støre, winner of the parliamentary elections of September 13.
In response, the Norwegian Police Authority decided that officers, who are usually unarmed, would carry weapons on a temporary basis across the country.
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A traditionally quiet nation, Norway has in the past been the target of far-right attacks.
In addition to the carnage caused by Anders Behring Breivik in 2011, a man also shot in a mosque near Oslo in 2019, before being overpowered by worshipers, without causing serious injuries.