Police in a small coastal community in the county of Møre og Romsdal have arrested a man in his 20s and charged him with the murder and mutilation of another man, also believed to be in his 20s. The murder victim’s body was found in a house at Bigset in Hareid, with several body parts missing.
The murder, called into police on Friday, has mobilized an unusually large police investigation including 27 police officers and technicians from the Sunnmøre Police District and nine specialists dispatched by Kripos, the national crime unit in Oslo. Hareid is located just east of Ulsteinvik on the northwest coast.
Shocked neighbours told reporters that the house was rented by the local township and used by troubled social welfare clients whom they claimed included many drug addicts. “What’s happened here is frightening, but we’ve been fearing this for a long time,” one neighbour, Brede Roset, told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). “It’s madness for the local government to have such a house in the middle of this residential neighbourhood, where there are many children.”
Roset said neighbourhood protests over the comings and goings of people believed to be drug users went unheeded by local authorities. “When we protested, we were told that everything would be find,” Roset told NRK. “The opposite has occurred.” The local mayor of Hareide, Anders Riise, declined comment until more details from police were known.
The murder victim was not immediately identified.
newsinenglish.no staff