The short version
- Task leader Tore Barstad testified in the terror trial and feared that the operation could become one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Europe.
- The perpetrator Zaniar Matapour was previously linked to Arfan Bhatti, and the police suspected a secondary attack.
- Two people were killed in the attack, and the situation could have been worse had it not been for civilians who stopped the perpetrator.
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The police’s task leader for 19 years, Tore Barstad, asked that PLIVO“ongoing life-threatening violence”: What distinguishes it from ordinary police actions is that, in a Plivo incident, you go straight into the action phase to stop the perpetrator with the means you have available. – the procedures were implemented, when the police car he was in sped through Oslo’s streets. He was on his way to a message about “Shooting in progress in London” on June 25, 2022.
On Tuesday, he testified in the trial after the terrorist attack that shook Oslo.
– I said we should hunt the perpetrator. It had priority over helping the injured, says Barstad from the witness box in Oslo District Court.
Then comes a message on the connection that a two-handed weapon has been found on the ground.
– So, why on earth is there still a two-handed weapon at the site, asks Barstad.
He fears there may be tens of dead people at the site.
– Yes I do. It may sound macabre, but we have seen a lot of this from abroad and use it in our training, says Barstad.
The June 25 Committee has previously written that Matapour’s actions could have turned into one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on civilians in Europe in many years.
– We also think that when we stand and see the scope outside London. A machine gun has been found. Are there multiple perpetrators? Can there be secondary attacks?
Barstad asks that all patrols in Oslo be allowed to arm themselves. The emergency squadThe emergency squad is the police’s national task force against terrorism and organized and other serious crime. calls in extra crews.
– I do that because we know far too little at this point, so it is important to me that everyone understands the seriousness, he says to VG today.
– Then you think that this could be terrorism?
– Yes. Before I heard the name of the man who the civilians had buried in the ground, I thought it was a 50/50 distribution between gang settlement and terror, says Barstad to VG.
He also thinks that the crime scene is in a London pub, a gathering place for queers.
– When the name of the perpetrator is read out, it was a short time to think that this could be terrorism, he says.
Barstad knew that Zaniar Matapour was stopped in a car together with Arfan BhattiIslamist Arfan Bhatti (45) is today charged with having planned the terror attack in Oslo on 25 June., just eight weeks before the night of the murder. It happened in connection with a demonstration where SIAN leader Lars Thorsen had planned to set fire to a Koran, at the same time as the Friday prayer in Stovner mosque.
The weapon stopped working
Today’s review in the Oslo district court shows that Zaniar Matapour first fired 8 shots with a Luger pistol. He then switches to a fully automatic MP40 submachine gun, a German holdover from World War II.
The investigation shows that Matapour takes a little over a minute to empty the magazine in the Luger, in addition to four rounds with the submachine gun.
11 people were hit by the shots, and two of them died.
Just before the matapour is put on the ground, 1 minute and 30 seconds after the first shot was fired, there is one last blast from the Luger. Matapour has managed to recharge it, while running away from those trying to overpower him.
No one is hit by the shot, and the civilians finally get the gun out of the perpetrator’s hands.
– And had it not been for the efforts of these 12 civilians and that the machine gun stopped working, it could have gone so much worse. He probably wasn’t finished, says Barstad.
