Allah’s Hammer

Forget Thor — a servant of Allah was the one wielding the hammer tonight in Norway. A young drunken culture-enricher hijacked a bus using a hammer.

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer has translated a news report about the incident. He includes this note:

This article is about a bus hijacking in Skien (approximately 2.5 hours southwest of Oslo) which occurred a couple of hours ago. The hijacker has been described as a Palestinian male.

The driver of the bus was visibly upset after the incident, and I don’t blame him. In 2003 another bus driver, Audun Bøland, was stabbed to death by an Ethiopian asylum seeker.

There have also been other episodes of cultural enrichers going berserk on board public transportation in Norway. Most noteworthy are the Kato air incident in 2004, when an Algerian man tried to bring down a small-engine passenger plane in Northern Norway with an axe, and of course the tram incident in Oslo in 2004 when a Somali male stabbed one passenger to death and critically injured six others.

The translated article from VG.no:

Eyewitness: The hijacker was furious when we disembarked

SKIEN / OSLO (AP) When the passengers disembarked the bus, the hijacker shouted, “Don’t let them off, don’t let them off.”

Sandra Svendsen (15) was on the M3 bus, en route between Skien and Porsgrunn, when it was hijacked at Klyve around 19.30 pm on Monday evening.

“A man came on board. He refused to pay for the ticket and started arguing with the driver,” Svendsen says to VG nett.

He then somehow managed to grab hold of a hammer mounted on the wall and began to threaten the driver. The other passengers were not allowed to get off the bus.

“The hijacker told the driver not to drop below 60 km/h [approx 40 miles per hour]. It was a frightening experience,” Svendsen says.

Was furious

The hijacker kept walking around the bus and sat down in different seats.

“He also tried to cover himself with a hood to conceal his face. He appeared to be quite intoxicated,” Svendsen says.

After a few minutes, a man shouted that he had to get off to pick up his kids. The bus driver was allowed to stop. When the bus came to a halt all the passengers on board disembarked.

“This made the hijacker furious. He shouted to the driver: ‘Don’t let them off, don’t let them off.’”

On the run

After Sandra and the other passengers had left, the driver was forced to continue on. At one stage the police had no idea where the bus was.

“The bus was eventually recovered at Bjørnstad. The alleged offender was arrested approximately 500 meters from the site,” the leader of operations from Telemark police precinct, Jens Arne Bærland told VG Nett.

The arrested man is 24 years old, and according to the police he is of foreign descent. He was arrested at 19.49 pm.

“The hijacker recently escaped from a psychiatric institution. He is now being examined by a doctor, and we hope to be able to question him thoroughly in the morning,” Bærland says.

The 24-year-old has acknowledged to police that he was the one responsible for the hijacking.

Upset driver

No one were physically injured in the bus drama, but the driver is upset and is currently being looked after by his employer and health care professionals.

“He is clearly shaken by the incident,” Bærland says.

Police are appealing to passengers that were onboard the hijacked but to contact them

“We want to talk to them,” Bærland says.

Thanks to Kitman for the title of this post.

For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.