Euronews.com reports that black metal musician and neo-Nazi sympathizer Kristian “Varg” Vikernes was arrested in France Tuesday after investigators decided he might stage a “terrorist act.”
The police, who suspect the Norwegian national of planning a "massacre," searched Vikernes' house for weapons and explosives.
[[ Click HERE to read our 2010 interview with Varg Vikernes. ]]
The 40-year-old musician was arrested with his wife, Marie Chachet, not long after she bought four rifles, French Ministry of the Interior Manuel Valls said in a statement.
“Having received the manifesto before (Breivik) committed his crimes and having been sentenced in Norway in the past for murder, this individual, who was close to a neo-Nazi movement, was likely to prepare a large terrorist act,” Valls said. Cachet, who belongs to a shooting club, bought the rifles legally.
“The investigation will notably establish the conditions in which these (rifles) were acquired and their real objective,” Valls added.
Vikernes, a member of black metal project Burzum, served 16 years of a 21-year prison term for murdering Øystein Aarseth, also known as Euronymous, the guitarist for black metal band Mayhem. Vikernes also has served time after being convicted of arson attacks on four churches. After he was freed in May 2009, he moved to southwestern France with his wife and three children.
Vikernes, a vocal neo-Nazi sympathizer, reportedly received a copy of the manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik, the terrorist responsible for the July 2011 Oslo bombing and Utoeya Massacre, which left 77 people dead. Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in jail for terrorism in August 2012.
Breivik sent a copy of a manifesto setting out his ideology to Vikernes, an official at the prosecutor’s office said. “That was the origin of the investigation …," the official said. "There were several suspicions that made the services fear he could possibly carry out a violent act.”
On his website, Vikernes discusses Breivik’s manifesto. In a post titled “War in Europe: Part V — Breivik Unveiled” he criticizes the murderer for killing more innocent Norwegians than Muslims. Vikernes, who describes himself as a “pagan,” accuses Breivik of being a Zionist agent and “Christian loser.”
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