Norway’s foreign ministry confirmed on Sunday that a 38-year-old Norwegian citizen, married to a Macedonian woman and living in Serbia, was shot and killed over the weekend by a Serbian paramilitary force that has police authority. Details remained unclear, but there are allegations the Norwegian had attacked a police officer first.
“We have received confirmation of the identity of the man who died in a shooting episode with Serbian police,” Frode O Andersen of the foreign ministry in Oslo told news bureau NTB. “We have received a report from the police in Serbia about what happened.”
Andersen declined to reveal details of the report Sunday evening. The man’s family in Norway has been notified, NRB reported, after police in Hordaland in western Norway, where the man was from, began contacting family members Saturday night.
One family member told Norway’s TV2 that they had trouble accepting the official Serbian version of events, saying they were awaiting a report from both the ministry and Norway’s state police investigation unit Kripos.
The shooting is said to have occurred early Saturday morning, with Serbian media reporting that the Norwegian attacked a Serbian police officer at a guard station by throwing a rock at his head, and then seizing his weapon. The Norwegian then allegedly started firing until he was shot himself by the paramilitary force in the town of Presevo, in the southern portion of Serbia.
The Norwegian’s motive was unclear and a local investigation is underway. Both the Norwegian and his Macedonia wife had been living in Presevo while they waited, according to TV2, for Norwegian immigration authorities to approve her application for permanent residence in Norway.
newsinenglish.no/Nina Berglund
