PARIS, France (AFP) – A Norwegian neo-Nazi black metal rocker and convicted killer was arrested in France on Tuesday over fears he may have been preparing a “major terrorist act”, the interior ministry said.
Kristian Vikernes, who is reportedly a sympathiser of Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, was arrested by intelligence officers at dawn at his home in the central city of Salon-la-Tour, as was his French wife Marie Cachet, 25.
According to the ministry, the 40-year-old who goes by the stage name “Varg” is “close to the neo-Nazi movement” and could have been preparing a “major terrorist act.”
Vikernes, who was once sentenced to 21 years in prison in Norway for stabbing to death one of his friends, had been under surveillance for several years.
But anti-terrorism authorities in Paris opened a probe into the father-of-three at the beginning of the month after his wife purchased weapons — albeit legally as she has a permit.
Vikernes reportedly sympathised with Breivik, who is being held in isolation in a high security prison near Oslo for killing 77 people in twin attacks in 2011.
