Elden: Bhatti offered to travel voluntarily to Norway

On Friday evening, a chartered private plane landed in Norway with the well-known Islamist Arfan Bhatti and a team from police emergency squad on board.

The flight put an end to a lengthy process in the Pakistani legal system to have Bhatti extradited to Norway.

The price tag for the actual operation to bring Bhatti home will be a “significant amount”, according to NRK’s ​​information.

Bhatti traveled to Pakistan on 7 June 2022. Two and a half weeks later, Zaniar Matapour shot and killed two people, and injured many more, in the terrorist attack in central Oslo.

Bhatti stayed wanted internationally by Norwegian police 29 August 2022and charged with complicity in aggravated terrorism.

Almost a month later, he was arrested by Pakistani security services. Bhatti claims to have been subjected to torture in Pakistani captivity.

At the same time, Bhatti’s defender, John Christian Elden, says that Bhatti already offered to go home to Norway in July 2022.

– He offered to return to Norway voluntarily in the summer of 2022, but then the police said that they had no need for him to return. Instead, he was secretly wanted and taken by the secret police, says The fire to NRK.

– We offered the police that he could return in mid-July because we heard from the media that he would be an interesting person for the police in this case. They rejected that and said there was no need for it. He was not a suspect and there was no need to talk to him.

Didn’t need to come home

Police attorney Ingvild Myrold ​​confirms that the police in Oslo had no need to bring Bhatti to Norway then.

– Early in the summer, Bhatti was a witness in the criminal case and at that time there was no need to get him to Norway, with regard to a certificate, says Myrold ​​to NRK.

– When he was eventually charged in the case, things turned out differently, as we feared that he would avoid punishment, she says.

Myrold ​​says the police later in the autumn tried to offer Bhatti to be flown to Norway.

– The police contacted Bhatti’s defense attorney at the time and asked if the defense attorney could discuss with Bhatti whether he wanted to be picked up by the Norwegian police together with his children. Whether they managed to have a conversation about it is not known to me.

– It was close to him being arrested?

– It was shortly after the search warrant that we had that conversation with his lawyersays Myrold.

NRK has been in contact with lawyer Svein Holden, who was Bhatti’s defender at the time, but he will not comment on this case.

Secret agent from the E service

A key piece of evidence in the trial against terrorist accused Zaniar Matapour is chat messages between an agent who worked for the Norwegian intelligence service and what the police believe are the two co-accused Arfan Bhatti and Aisha Kausar.

The agent used two different false identities in the dialogue with the two extreme Islamists.

In front of Bhatti, he pretended to be an emir who had a kind of leadership function in the terrorist group IS. The two had contact after the terrorist attack in Oslo.

In the chat, the profile, which the police believe is Bhatti, comes up with several specific plans for new terrorist attacks and mentions people who may be willing to carry them out.

Bhatti denies that he is the one who wrote these messages.

The police in Oslo did not receive these messages from the National Intelligence Service until 25 August 2022, when the secret operation against Bhatti was phased out.

– When we called for him, we had concrete information that Bhatti was probably going to evade prosecution when he learned of the serious charge against him. In addition, there was information in the chat with the Norwegian Intelligence Service where other terrorist targets were planned or proposed, says Myrold.

– If it is the case that Bhatti is behind that profile, then it is important for the police to stop him in time, says the police attorney.

Bhatti claims he was abducted

Arfan Bhatti calls the arrest in Pakistan an illegal abduction. He was caught after he had delivered the children to school and is said to have had a hood over his head.

For over half a year, he was held in a secret location by the Pakistani security services, before being transferred to the federal police on 14 April 2023.

In yesterday’s detention order, it is this date that is stated as the date Bhatti was arrested by the Pakistani authorities.

– He had a rather difficult prison stay and was also subjected to torture. It is clear that the Norwegian authorities should be a little more careful when they know that he is alone with minor children abroad, says Bhatti’s defender Elden.

Bhatti claims the Norwegian authorities put him and his young children at risk of death through the search for him.

Bhatti wrote this in a handwritten letter, which was handed over to the Norwegian police when they were in the prison in Pakistan to question him in January this year.

– Were Bhatti’s children taken into account when searching for him?

– We knew that he stayed in Pakistan with his children and that was an important part of the assessment, also with regard to the children’s safety, but what assessments and specific measures were taken there I will not go into further detail, police attorney Myrold ​​replies to NRK.