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POLICE

Norway ambulance hijacker ‘common criminal’, not motivated by terror

Norwegian authorities said Wednesday that a man who allegedly stole an ambulance and ran down four pedestrians in Oslo appears to be a common criminal rather than a terrorist.

Norway ambulance hijacker 'common criminal', not motivated by terror
The hijacked ambulance crashed into a gate outside a residential building on Tuesday. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum / NTB Scanpix / AFP

On Tuesday, the 32-year-old man slightly injured the pedestrians, including seven-month-old twins, in what police called a “deliberate” act.

He was arrested a short time later and identified as someone who already had a criminal record, and who some Norwegian media said had links to far-right groups.

But “it looks now like a common criminal case that does not concern us,” said Martin Bernsen, spokesman for the PST interior security service that handles anti-terrorist matters.

“At this point, we are not treating this as a terrorist matter,” Bernsen told AFP, though he noted that the investigation was at an early stage.

On Tuesday, police recovered a hunting rifle and an Uzi automatic pistol along with a large amount of narcotics in the stolen ambulance.

The suspect's lawyer, Øyvind Bergøy Pedersen, told the daily Verdens Gang that the man was just trying to escape from police and had not deliberately tried to injure onlookers.

The lawyer rejected reported links with far-right groups.

A 25-year-old woman who was with the man was arrested as well.

They had been involved in another accident, during which their vehicle overturned, police said 

When emergency services arrived at the scene, the man stole the ambulance while the woman fled.

The incident took place in a residential neighbourhood in northern Oslo, and while trying to get away, the man hit a woman with a pram carrying the twins.

They were taken to a hospital but did not suffer any severe injuries.

READ ALSO: Norwegian police in 'actions' after ambulance hijack

POLICE

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

A Danish court on Thursday gave a two-month suspended prison sentence to a 31-year-old Swede for making a joke about a bomb at Copenhagen's airport this summer.

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

In late July, Pontus Wiklund, a handball coach who was accompanying his team to an international competition, said when asked by an airport agent that
a bag of balls he was checking in contained a bomb.

“We think you must have realised that it is more than likely that if you say the word ‘bomb’ in response to what you have in your bag, it will be perceived as a threat,” the judge told Wiklund, according to broadcaster TV2, which was present at the hearing.

The airport terminal was temporarily evacuated, and the coach arrested. He later apologised on his club’s website.

“I completely lost my judgement for a short time and made a joke about something you really shouldn’t joke about, especially in that place,” he said in a statement.

According to the public prosecutor, the fact that Wiklund was joking, as his lawyer noted, did not constitute a mitigating circumstance.

“This is not something we regard with humour in the Danish legal system,” prosecutor Christian Brynning Petersen told the court.

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