Suspect in Norway Bow Attack Violated Restraining Order From Relative in 2020, Reports Say

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The suspect in a recent deadly bow and arrow attack in Norway had a restraining order from a relative and violated it in 2020, local media reported on Thursday.

The suspect violated a restraining order on 11 June, two weeks after the court imposed it over the man threatening to kill a close relative, the newspaper reported, citing a court document from Kongsberg and Eiker District Court.

The man's neighbour told the newspaper that the police came to his house twice in 2020 — the first time on June 11, then on August 8. The neighbour said that he had seen the archer practice with a hammer, a baton and various sticks in his backyard.

The suspect will be assessed by forensic psychiatric experts, police prosecutor Ann Irén Swan Mathiassen told the NRK broadcaster.

On Wednesday evening, police detained a man in the town Kongsberg who shot arrows at people wounding two and killing five people. The motives behind Kongsberg attack are not fully clear yet, but the police do not rule out the version of a terrorist plot. The shooter, arrested by the police, is a 37-year-old Dane living in Kongsberg. At a press conference earlier on Thursday, the police said the suspect was a convert to Islam.