Belgian army
The investigation into a brawl in Åndalsnes, Norway, has yielded four additional suspects. The Norwegian police said this. Immediately after the battle, four Belgian soldiers were arrested and interrogated.
On the night of Saturday 17 to Sunday 18 February, a group of up to twenty people brawled in the street in front of a café in Åndalsnes, about 400 kilometers north of the Norwegian capital Oslo. Six people were injured, one of them had to go to hospital. Four Belgian soldiers were arrested on the spot. They were released after interrogation, but are not allowed to leave Norway while the investigation is ongoing.
This continued investigation has now yielded four additional suspects, the Norwegian police report. It mainly tries to determine, on the basis of video images, who provoked the fight and which specific acts of violence were committed by both the Belgian soldiers and local residents. Nothing has yet been said about the identity and nationality of the four additional suspects, except that “no local residents are suspected”. The Norwegian police say they are working closely with the Belgian military police and the Belgian delegation that has traveled to Norway to identify those involved. There are no reports of Belgian soldiers being injured in the brawl.
In the Norwegian media, bargoers stated that the atmosphere in the bar had been charged for hours when the brawl broke out. According to witnesses, the Belgian soldiers, who were in Norway for training, were so winded that they were dancing “half naked” on tables.
The four soldiers who were temporarily in jail after the brawl are between 20 and 40 years old. If Belgian soldiers are convicted in Norway, there is a good chance that they will be expelled from the army in our country for misconduct. Especially since the case of Jürgen Conings – the soldier with extreme right-wing sympathies who threatened virologist Marc Van Ranst, among others – military disciplinary law has been applied very strictly, according to trade union circles.