“The Oslo Terror Attack: Failures of Intelligence and Prevention”

PST and the National Intelligence Service may have known enough to avert the Oslo terror last summer, believes Zaniar Matapour’s defender.

Matapour (43) fired the shots on the terrorist night of June 25 last year.

The attack took place outside the Per på Hjørnet and London pubs, while many were celebrating Pride in Oslo’s streets.

Two men were killed, several seriously injured and an entire Pride community was struck by fear.

On Tuesday, VG revealed messages that were sent between a Norwegian wanted Islamist and an agent from the National Intelligence Service before the attack. The Islamist explained in the messages that a “brother”, who the police believe is Arfan Bhatti, planned terror against a country in Scandinavia.

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Lawyer Marius Dietrichson is Zaniar Matapour’s defender.

He believes that PST and the E-service have failed because they were unable to ward off the attack. The two secret services disagree about how the flow of information was between them before the attack.

– We as a society must be able to expect that PST and the E-service share the necessary information between them, and not afterwards stand and point at each other, he says to VG.

– Their task is to protect society against future attacks. Taken as a whole, they have failed in their social mission.

The intelligence service had at least two conversations with the Islamist in question before the attack. What the Norwegian Intelligence Service shared from these conversations with PST is still unclear.

Over the past few months, VG has collected information that the Norwegian authorities knew before the terror attack:

• The Norwegian authorities knew the identity of the Islamist they chatted with, and that the person in question has been in Bhatti’s network for several years.
• PST has previously said that they assumed that the terrorist attack would take place in Norway.
• 11 days before the attack, a photo was published on Bhatti’s Facebook profile showing a burning Pride flag. Above the picture was a text calling for the murder of homosexuals.
• PST became aware of this post «shortly before the attack», according to PST manager Beate Gangås.
• The next big event in Norway at this time was Pride.

A couple of months before the terror, Matapour was stopped in the same car as Bhatti, near a SIAN demonstration at Stovner, where a Koran was to be burned.

The police arrested Bhatti and found a knife in the trunk of the car.

PST has known Matapour since 2015. They have been concerned about radicalization and that he was part of an extreme Islamist network in Norway.

In the period between March and June last year, PST had two conversations of concern with Zaniar Matapour, now accused of terrorism.

– The state could and should have averted the attack, as I read the case, says Dietrichson.

– Failure in all joints

Matapour’s defense attorney says it is somewhat pointless to talk about prevention, since he believes the Norwegian Intelligence Service gave its permission and support for the terrorist attack.

– The intelligence service’s agents have, under the guise of being IS, given their approval and permission for the attack to take place. They obviously shouldn’t have done that, says Dietrichson, who also claims that PST and the police should have been able to do something anyway.

– How much more do they need to know before they go public and acknowledge that Pride is now threatened, so that people can take their precautions, asks Dietrichson.

– And how much more do they need to know before they follow up concrete clues against named persons in the case. But they do nothing. The threat assessment, which PST lowered just a few days in advance, is not changing. Civil society is not notified. And those involved are not stopped. It seems that it is failing at every point, says the lawyer.

VG has submitted the criticism to PST. They do not wish to comment on the matter.

The intelligence service refers to their previous answers, where they have said that they shared “all relevant information continuously with PST”.

– The claims that the National Intelligence Service provoked the terrorist attack in Oslo last summer are not rooted in reality, communications manager Ann-Kristin Bjergene has previously written to VG.

– The service’s mission is, on the contrary, to uncover and notify about threats against Norway. Our work and the methods we use are firmly established in Norwegian law. We seek to gain access to sufficient information about threat actors, uncover plans and thus contribute to warding off attacks.