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Two dead after stabbing at Norway primary school

Norwegian police on Monday night were searching for the person or persons who killed a boy and a woman at a primary school earlier in the day in Kristiansand.

Published: 5 December 2016 22:01 CET

Two dead after stabbing at Norway primary school

The deaths occurred at Wilds Minne School in Kristiansand. Photo: Tor Erik Schrøder / NTB scanpix

As of 10pm, investigators had few leads in the two stabbing deaths, which occurred just after 4pm on the premises of the Wilds Minne School, a school for first through seventh graders.

Police haven’t established the number of involved perpetrators nor their connection to the victims.

According to police, the female victim worked at a daycare facility near the school.

“We know that it was one of the women who worked in a private daycare in the area. The municipality is now assisting in terms of how the centre will cope with the situation,” Mayor Harald Furre told broadcaster NRK.

Fædrelandsvennen reported that the woman was an ethnic Norwegian in her 40s.

Terje Kaddeberg Skaar of the Agder Police said there is little or no evidence to suggest that there were eyewitnesses to the stabbings.

“We have therefore not established if there is a relationship between the two victims,” Skaar said at a Monday evening press conference.

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Police were notified of the stabbings at 4.10pm. The first reports were that a woman and a child were stabbed, and that both were taken to the Hospital of Southern Norway with serious injuries.

The woman was declared dead at 5.46pm and the boy died about 15 minutes later, police said.

Wilds Minne School official Anne Marie Mauland Mansoor told Fædrelandsvennen that no students were directly involved in the incident. According to her, no students saw what happened.

Norway's ex-biathlon boss jailed for three years for corruption

Norwegian Anders Besseberg, the 78-year-old head of the International Biathlon Union from 1993 to 2018, was found guilty of nine of 10 counts of aggravated corruption during the period 2009-2018, charges he denied.

“I am of course disappointed and surprised about the verdict and some of the judges’ reasoning. I am appealing on the spot,” Besseberg told the court after the judge read out the 67-page verdict over the course of almost three hours.

“The defendant breached the trust that came with his position at the IBU by accepting the benefits,” judge Vidar Toftoy-Lohne at the Buskerud district court said.

The prosecution hailed the verdict.

“There is a lot of money in circulation in international elite sport. The federations manage substantial financial assets and make decisions that are important for both athletes and the business community,” prosecutor Marianne Djupesland said in a statement.

“We hope this verdict can contribute to raising awareness and that it will have a preventive effect,” she said.

Prosecutors had sought a jail term of three years and seven months and a fine of one million kroner ($95,000).

The court did not hand down a fine, but ordered Besseberg to return gifts amounting to 1.4 million kroner.

Besseberg admitted accepting gifts but dismissed the notion that corruption was involved.

“Even if I received expensive gifts and was invited by many to go hunting, I must stress that I never let myself be corrupted,” he told the court during his trial, media reported.

Russian shadow

As head of the IBU when the Russian doping scandal exploded in the 2010s, Besseberg was accused of initially hiding cases of Russian doping in his sport in exchange for favours.

Prosecutors dropped that line of attack, but in Norway, receiving improper favours, even if no services are provided in exchange, is enough to constitute corruption.

Russia’s shadow nonetheless hung heavily over the case.

According to an inquiry launched by Sweden’s Olle Dahlin, who succeeded Besseberg as head of the IBU, Besseberg pushed to hold the 2021 biathlon world championships in Tyumen, Siberia, despite the Russian doping scandals.

The contest was eventually awarded to Pokljuka in Slovenia.

Prosecutors argued that Besseberg went on fully paid hunting trips in Austria and in the Czech Republic, and for seven years drove a leased BMW X5, all paid for by Infront, a marketing company that held television rights to the sport.

They argued he was given three watches worth a total of more than 30,000 euros ($33,000), invited on trips to hunt deer and wild boar, and offered services from sex workers, all paid for by Russian officials.

Asked about an Omega watch worth more than 17,000 euros he received in 2011 for his 65th birthday, he said: “I did not think it was undeserved.”

The court said two of the three watches he received constituted corruption.

Besseberg also denied any contact with sex workers, acknowledging only what he said was a consensual affair with a 42-year-old Russian.

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