OSLO: A man from Syria is suspected of stabbing his wife and another man on Friday in an attack in a quiet rural village in Norway, police said.
Police originally said the suspect appeared to have chosen his victims “at random”, but later confirmed that he was married to the woman.
The incident took place near a bus stop in Nore og Uvdal, a town of fewer than 3,000 people in the Numedal valley in south-eastern Norway.
The suspect was arrested at the scene. Both victims were flown to hospital, the woman in a critical condition.
The other man, whose relationship to the attacker was not known, was lightly injured, police said.
Witnesses told Norwegian media they saw a woman lying in “a big pool of blood”.
“We can confirm that there is a family relationship between the perpetrator and one of those stabbed,“ police inspector Odd Skei Kostveit said.
“This is a family from Syria and the perpetrator and one of the victims are married,“ he added.
The attacker was also injured but did not require hospital care, police official Tom Richard Jensen told reporters.
- ‘Strikes like lightning’ -
Police provided no detailed motive for the stabbing, but commercial television TV2 said the suspect was under investigation for domestic abuse after a police report was filed against him last November.
A restraining order against him appeared to have been respected until now, TV2 said.
The attack took place near a bus stop, between a convenience store and a high school. The attacker was restrained by passers-by before police arrived, police said.
Norwegian media said a coach driver and high-school students managed to pin him down before police, ambulances and ambulance helicopters arrived at the scene.
Numedal is just north of Kongsberg, where a man killed five people and injured several others using knives and a bow and arrow last October.
A Danish man, whom experts say suffers from psychiatric problems, went on trial Thursday accused of carrying out that attack.
Friday’s stabbing shook Nore og Uvdal.
“I am not aware of any previous threats,“ local mayor, Jan Gaute Bjerke, told TV2.
“This kind of event usually strikes like lightning out of the blue,“ he said.
The high school and other nearby schools had been secured, he said.
The high school confirmed that an incident took place nearby and that “medical personnel and police were in the school following up”.-AFP
