More arrests in Norway’s twin massacres
Posted Jul 24, 2011 8:41 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Britain’s Sky News now says authorities in Norway have arrested six people in connection to Friday’s twin massacres in Norway.
At the same time, security officials in Europe say there has been an increase in internet chatter from people claiming to belong to a group called the New Knights Templar, a group allegedly being linked to suspect Anders Breivik, who has confessed his involvement in Friday’s bombing in Oslo that killed seven people and the shooting deaths of at least 86 individuals at a summer youth camp on a nearby island. Four people remain missing.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, two European security officials say claims are being investigated that Breivik and other far-right individuals attended a meeting of the group in London in 2002.
The lawyer for Breivik says while his client has confessed to the shocking crimes, he is denying criminal responsibility. His lawyer adds, Breivik says he acted alone and he wanted to attack Norwegian society in order to change it.
Among the items discovered in the police investigation so far: a 1500 page manifesto, allegedly written by Breivik, vowing a European civil war which would lead to the execution of cultural Marxists and the banishing of Muslims.
Sunday, Norway’s King, Queen and Prime Minister were among those attending memorial services for the victims. They attended a service at a cathedral only a few hundred metres from where the bomb blast occurred.
Here in Calgary, Allison Wiigs, President of the Calgary chapter of the Sons of Norway, tells the Calgary Herald she’s relieved the day of horror in Olso appears to be the work of one man.
A Canadian married to a man of Norwegian descent, Wiig says: “It seems that they are saying it’s the work of one right-wing radical type, so I’m hoping the danger is all over.”
Egil Bjornsen, the Calgary-based Honourary Norwegian Consul, says he talked to his mother in Norway, noting: “Everyone is in shock that this could happen, but if it could happen there, it could happen anywhere.”
Bjornsen, who was born and raised on the southwest coast of Norway but moved to Canada 30 years ago, adds it’s still too early to say if a memorial event will be held in Calgary for Friday’s bombing and shooting victims.
There are about 125,000 people of Norwegian descent living in Alberta — making them the biggest group of Scandinavians in the province — with many settling near Camrose, Viking and Grande Prairie in the early 1900’s.
