A Norwegian man arrested in Budapest for planning to surpass Breivik's mass killing
Hungarian authorities have arrested a 45-year-old Norwegian man suspected of organizing mass killings with the intention of surpassing the mass murder committed by the Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik in 2011.
This was reported by Reuters.
The Hungarian police stated that the arrested man, whose name was not disclosed, uploaded several posts on a video-sharing platform where he described plans for committing mass killings at an unspecified location. The police reported that the suspect, who primarily spoke Norwegian and occasionally English, stated that he aimed to surpass Breivik's killings. "I can strike anywhere... an airport, a railway terminal, nothing can be a problem... I will destroy the innocent," the police quoted the man's words from some videos.
The man, detained by counter-terrorism forces, has been previously convicted of various acts of violence and sexual crimes in Norway, as informed by the Hungarian police, citing information received from Norwegian counterparts. They did not provide further details about his past crimes.
The Norwegian police confirmed to Reuters that the Hungarian authorities had contacted them regarding the man, but they refused to comment on "another country's investigation".
Based on the available information, it was necessary to apprehend the man as quickly as possible, so a coordinated operation took place a few hours after the alert, and the National Bureau of Investigation requested the Counter-Terrorism Centre to carry out the arrest, considering the seriousness of the crime and the individual's background. He was arrested in his apartment in Budapest, and the police seized nearly all computer devices in the apartment.
The man was interrogated by investigators on reasonable suspicion of threatening to commit a terrorist act, after which he was taken into custody and an investigation was initiated. The court arrested the man and placed him in a forensic psychiatric institution.
In July 2011, Breivik killed 77 people, marking the deadliest crime in peacetime Norway. He detonated a car bomb in Oslo, killing eight people, and then shot and killed 69, most of whom were teenagers, at a youth camp on the island of Utøya. Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison with the possibility of indefinite extension in 2012. In 2017, he filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights. Breivik was dissatisfied with his cell being searched, his limited contact with the outside world, and his food being reheated in a microwave. The court rejected the case for consideration.