The man who is charged with the massacres in Kongsberg was last year banned from visiting his parents after he allegedly threatened to kill his father.
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The police state at a press conference on Thursday morning that they have previously been contacted in connection with concerns related to the radicalization of the accused man. According to the police, he is supposed to be a convert to Islam.
– We have not registered reports of him in 2021. But there have been reports before, and these have been followed up, says Chief of Police Ole Bredrup Sæverud in the South-East police district.
Background: Four women and one man killed on Kongsberg
The latest report of concern should have arrived in 2020.
– I do not have the number, but there has been concern for some time, Sæverud says to VG.
– He has converted to Islam and been in the police spotlight, do you think this is religiously motivated?
– We know nothing about motive yet. But it is natural to ask that question, says the police chief.
Threatened parents
On May 29 last year, the accused man entered the family members’ house and walked around the house even though they asked him to leave the place. He also threatened to kill his father, according to a ruling from what was then called Kongsberg and Eiker District Court.
The court therefore imposed on him a six-month visitation ban on his parents, which was served on the same day. VG is not aware of whether the curfew was later extended or not.
The court’s decision states that the man left a Colt revolver caliber 45 on the sofa, something the parents must have experienced as threatening.
“According to the review, the revolver looks like a functional weapon,” it says in the ruling.
Despite the restraining order, the man is said to have visited his parents again last summer.
Believes the family has tried to notify
The accused 37-year-old is a Danish citizen, but was born and has lived in Norway all his life. According to VG’s information, he has not been in work since the beginning of the 2000s.
Danish Extra Bladet has spoken to a family member of the man, who says that the family is shaken by what has happened.
– The last I heard was that he had been home with a bag, and that his mother had to run away from home, because he had a saber in a bag, says the man, who lives in Denmark to the newspaper.
According to the family member, the immediate family has been in regular contact with the police and has also tried to notify other authorities.
– But he has only gone and taken care of himself. His parents have not been able to look after him and therefore asked the police for help. How to stand up for people who are mentally ill, says the family member who emphasizes that the man’s parents are “absolutely without guilt” in the brutal acts.
The man says he feared that it was the accused man who was the perpetrator when he first heard about the incident.
– He should have been in a closed ward a long time ago, he says.
Gross theft and drugs
In 2012, the man was sentenced to 60 days probation for aggravated theft and purchase and use of a small amount of hashish.
The verdict states that the accused has also previously been convicted of similar offenses, but the court believed that it was so far back in time that it did not affect the sentencing.
The man was arrested in Kongsberg on Wednesday night at 18.47. About half an hour earlier – at 18.13 – the police had received the first reports that a man was moving around the city and shot with a bow and arrow.
Four women and a man were killed and two people were injured. Police confirmed Thursday morning that the perpetrator used several different weapons.
The accused is in custody in Drammen and was questioned on Thursday night. Both the police and the man’s defender Fredrik Neumann confirm to VG that he has acknowledged the facts.
– He has said that he was the one who killed five people, ie the actual circumstances, says police attorney Ann Irén Svane Mathiassen to VG.
– What can you say about the motive of the accused?
– We do not go out with motive, then I have to go into what he has explained in interrogation. We are not going out with that now, we have to wait a bit with that. we do not want to go out with it so early. It is part of the investigation to find out what motives he has, says Mathiassen.
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