A 45-year-old Norwegian national living in Budapest who had posted several videos online threatening to commit a terrorist attack in the city has been arrested, Hungarian authorities announced on Tuesday.
The suspect was detained by counter-terror officers last week after his videos were flagged by intelligence services monitoring the world wide web for extremist content.
In the videos, the suspect had reportedly expressed his desire to imitate the Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Breivik, infamous for murdering eight people in Oslo by detonating a van bomb before proceeding to kill 69 individuals at a Workers’ Youth League summer camp in a mass shooting back in 2011.
Officers at the Emergency Police National Investigation Office (KR NNI) identified the extremist and initiated an investigation into the suspect. It transpired the man had been convicted several times in Norway for a sleuth of violent and sexual crimes.
He was subsequently arrested last Wednesday at his Budapest apartment, and police seized his computer equipment during an extensive search of the property.
In videos posted online, the suspect made a number of threats to murder civilians, insisting he was capable of conducting large-scale attacks on key points of interest.
“I will take everything that matters, that is valuable, I will destroy the country. Just listen! (…) I can attack anywhere (…) Airport, railway station, nothing is a problem for me (…) I will destroy the innocent,” he could be heard saying.
A Hungarian court sanctioned his arrest on June 10 and ordered that he be held in the Judicial Observation and Psychiatric Institute.
Hungarian Police published a video of the arrest on Youtube, confirming they have initiated criminal proceedings against him for threatening to commit a terrorist act.
