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NORWAY

Norwegian mafia tied to car trunk murder case

Police in Oslo are to investigate suspicions that Norwegian drug gangs may be connected to the grisly find of two burned bodies in the boot of a car in western Sweden last week.

Swedish police have now confirmed that both victims of the suspected double murder near Halmstad were men, a conclusion which strengthens the theory that the bodies found off the E6 motorway were those of the car owner’s 25-year-old son and his 42-year-old uncle.

“It is correct that the supposed murder victims had a certain connection to Norway. It is for this reason that police in Oslo have received a request for assistance from Sweden,” Einar Aas, head of the Oslo police department’s organized crime division, told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.

Though a full identification is not expected until the end of the week, family members of the supposed victims, with a background in northern Iraq, have already begun grieving their loss, Expressen reports.

“The car is mine. I have lost hope that my son and his uncle are still alive. This is the worst catastrophe of my life,” the 25-year-old’s father told Expressen.

The 42-year-old, a resident of Arvika in central Sweden, had previously lived in Oslo where he ran a business and had a large number of contacts. He was believed to have been travelling from the Norwegian capital to Malmö on the day of the macabre find.

With him in the car was his 25-year-old nephew and three million Norwegian kronor ($535,000), believed to have been the proceeds of a drug deal, Dagbladet reports.

According to the newspaper, the 42-year-old had run into various difficulties with serious criminals in recent months, including a difference of opinion with drug dealers in St. Petersburg over a consignment of marijuana.

The bodies were found on Wednesday night after emergency crews received a call about a red Volvo S60 on fire on a bridge over the E6 motorway near Getinge outside Halmstad.

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NORWAY

Norway to send 200,000 AstraZeneca doses to Sweden and Iceland

Norway, which has suspended the use of AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine until further notice, will send 216,000 doses to Sweden and Iceland at their request, the Norwegian health ministry said Thursday.

Norway to send 200,000 AstraZeneca doses to Sweden and Iceland
Empty vials of the AstraZeneca vaccine. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)

“I’m happy that the vaccines we have in stock can be put to use even if the AstraZeneca vaccine has been paused in Norway,” Health Minister Bent Høie said in a statement.

The 216,000 doses, which are currently stored in Norwegian fridges, have to be used before their expiry dates in June and July.

Sweden will receive 200,000 shots and Iceland 16,000 under the expectation they will return the favour at some point. 

“If we do resume the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, we will get the doses back as soon as we ask,” Høie said.

Like neighbouring Denmark, Norway suspended the use of the AstraZeneca jab on March 11 in order to examine rare but potentially severe side effects, including blood clots.

Among the 134,000 AstraZeneca shots administered in Norway before the suspension, five cases of severe thrombosis, including three fatal ones, had been registered among relatively young people in otherwise good health. One other person died of a brain haemorrhage.

On April 15, Norway’s government ignored a recommendation from the Institute of Public Health to drop the AstraZeneca jab for good, saying it wanted more time to decide.

READ MORE: Norway delays final decision on withdrawal of AstraZeneca vaccine 

The government has therefore set up a committee of Norwegian and international experts tasked with studying all of the risks linked to the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which is also suspected of causing blood clots.

Both are both based on adenovirus vector technology. Denmark is the only European country to have dropped the AstraZeneca
vaccine from its vaccination campaign, and said on Tuesday it would “lend” 55,000 doses to the neighbouring German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

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