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CRIMINAL

Man held over university massacre threat

A 33-year-old man has been arrested for threatening a student massacre at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm.

Man held over university massacre threat

The man has admitted the offence, according to KTH’s head of security, Lena Edvardsson.

The 33-year-old had threatened to shoot students attending the university.

“We are going to have police officers in attendance at the institute to inform people about the situation,” Edvardsson told news agency TT.

The security chief confirmed that the university will remain open as normal.

In making the threats on an internet forum, the anonymous person stated that they would take a gun to the institute on Monday and shoot as many people as possible.

Both KTH and the police took the threat seriously and worked intensively to find the source of the threat and avert it.

Ulf Göranzon at Stockholm police confirmed that the man has admitted to putting the threat on the internet.

“At 12.30pm we traced the suspect. We followed the electronic trail he left on the internet,” Göranzon said.

A warrant was soon after issued for the man’s arrest and he was detained during the night in Gothenburg. The man was interviewed first at around 4am. According to media reports he is a student at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg.

The police hope to gain more detailed information over the incident from subsequent interviews.

“The first interview has consisted of a lot of formalities. We have informed him of the suspicions. More thorough interviews will take place when a defence counsel has been appointed,” Göranzon told news agency TT.

The man, who is suspected of unlawful threats, remains in Gothenburg but Göranzon presumes that he will be transferred to Stockholm.

Fifty police officers have been deployed at KTH on Monday and Göranzon confirmed that some will remain despite the arrest of the suspect.

“We will have a police presence at KTH, but we will adapt the force according to needs,” he said.

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NAZIS

Outrage in France after Nazi massacre memorial defaced

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday vowed that everything would be done to find out who defaced a memorial for one of the worst single massacres in France by the Nazis during World War II.

Outrage in France after Nazi massacre memorial defaced
The word 'martyr' was crossed out and the word 'liars' written in its place. Photo: Pascal Lachenaud/AFP
French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday vowed that everything would be done to find out who defaced a memorial for one of the worst single massacres in France by the Nazis during World War II.
   
Politicians from across the spectrum denounced the desecration of the main entrance sign for the memorial at Oradour-sur-Glane in central France, where 642 people were slaughtered on June 10, 1944 by a German SS division.
   
The word “martyr” was crossed out in the sign with white paint.
   
A blue cover was placed over the sign on Saturday, but images on social media accounts indicated the word in French for “liar” had been added next to it along with other slogans claiming to deny the massacre had taken place.
 
 
The inscriptions were discovered on Friday morning when the memorial centre opened, its president Fabrice Escure told AFP.
 
“It is a complete outrage,” he said, adding that a legal complaint had already been filed and security cameras may be able to provide evidence.
   
On June 10, 1944, Nazi forces sealed off the village after reports a senior SS commander had been captured by the French resistance.
   
They grouped together all the men of the village in barns and shot them and then forced the women and children into a church which was set on fire.
 
 After the war, resistance leader and later president Charles de Gaulle ordered that the village not be rebuilt but left in ruins as a reminder. A new village was built nearby.
   
The memorial centre, now visited by 300,000 every year, was later constructed to assist visitors.
   
“Everything will be done to ensure that the authors of this are brought to justice,” Macron said in a statement released by the Elysee Palace, adding that he condemned in the most vehement terms this “unspeakable” act.
   
“To violate this place of reflection is also to violate the memory of our martyrs,” added Prime Minister Jean Castex.
   
The incident comes amid growing concern in France over remembering World War II, after repeated vandalisation attacks on Jewish cemeteries.   
 
“What shocks me is that we do not realise that children and women lost their lives in excruciating pain,” Robert Hebras, 95, the last man still alive among half a dozen men from the village who survived the massacre.
   
“What I fear is that everyone will now talk about Oradour for 48 hours and then that we stop and then we will forget,” he told AFP.
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