Today, Friday (15/10) justice is expected to decide on Norway whether he will be remanded in custody Espen Andersen Broten, the 37-year-old man who confessed that the day before yesterday, Wednesday fired attack with bow and arrow in the city of Kongsberg, as a result to kill five people.
The emotion remained strong yesterday, Thursday night in this small town in the south-east of Norway, where the residents gathered for an overnight with candles in memory of the victims of the attack. Four women and a man between the ages of 50 and 70 were killed in the attack by Brotten, who he seems to have chosen his victims at random. The attack lasted 35 minutes before being arrested by police. Three other people, including an off-duty police officer, were injured.
“We are a small community and we need to be here for each other,” said Christine Johansen, a 29-year-old teacher.
Archery attack in Norway: “We would like him to be detained for a month”
Broten, who according to police is a 37-year-old Danish citizen who has embraced Islam and was known to the authorities because he had become radicalized, he confessed during his interrogation that he launched the attack with a bow and arrow.
“We would like him to be remanded in custody for a month,” said Anne Svan Mathiasen, the prosecutor in charge of the case. The Kongsberg court is expected to rule on the matter today, but Brotten is not expected to be present at the hearing. According to the police, the man will not oppose the request to be remanded in custody.
Due to the way he acted and due to the fact that he blindly beat his victims, but also because he was known to the authorities due to his radicalization, the authorities consider that this is a crime of Islamist terrorism. “The act itself leads us to think that it may be a terrorist act, but the important thing now is for the investigation to proceed and to clarify the motives of the suspect,” Norwegian police chief Hans Svere Sgevold told a news conference yesterday. .
Authorities have not ruled out the possibility of suffering from psychological problems. “He is a person who has been coming and going in the health system for a while,” said Svere Sgevold. According to Svane Matiasen, the psychiatric evaluation of Broten has already begun, but its results may be announced in several months, as reported by APE-MPE.
“He never smiled”
The perpetrator was known to the Norwegian police, mainly the anti-terrorist service, but no information has been released on the matter. “There were fears of his previous radicalization,” explained Ole Brendrup Severund, a police official. These fears date back to 2020 and earlier.
According to Norwegian media, they had been extradited against Brotten two court decisions: last year he was banned from visiting two of his close relatives after threatening to kill one of them, while in 2012 he was convicted of burglary and buying marijuana. In addition, some media outlets published a video of Brotten from 2017 in which he is heard saying in a threatening voice: “I am a messenger. I have come up with a warning: ‘is this what you really want?’ (…) Know that I am a Muslim “.
A neighbor in Kongsberg, who wished to remain anonymous, described Brotten as a not a particularly likeable man, with an imposing figure and a shaved head. “Never a smile, no expression on his face,” he added, adding that “I always saw him alone.”
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