The Oslo police offered Bhatti and his family a private flight from Pakistan to get him to Norway
After Arfan Bhatti was wanted for complicity in terrorism, the police tried to lure him home from Pakistan. They offered him and his family a private flight from Lahore to Oslo.
Aftenposten has been told this by Pakistani and Norwegian sources who know the case and the investigation. The offer is said to have reached Bhatti after The 45-year-old is wanted internationally by the Oslo police on Friday 24 September. He was also charged with complicity in terrorism in Oslo after the mass shooting in Oslo on 25 June.
The offer must have come from the Oslo police to Bhatti to he was caught by the police in Pakistan. He stayed at this time with several of his children at the family residence in a village just outside Gujrat in the Punjab province.
Police attorney Ingvild Myrold says she will not comment on the information now. Nor will Svein Holden, Bhatti’s defender, comment on the information.
Was arrested in Pakistan
Three days after he was internationally wanted, Bhatti was arrested by an anti-terrorist unit of the Pakistani police. According to a central source in the security policy of the Pakistani police, they must have followed him for a couple of days before they decided to arrest him and take him away.
The Norwegian self-proclaimed Islamist has now been with the police for more than two weeks. He was quickly moved from Gujrat to the big city of Lahore. He has still not been formally arrested, but arrested by the police who led the investigation, Aftenposten is informed.
Bhatti denies having anything to do with the incident in Oslo, according to his defender Svein Holden.
The police, for their part, believe that Bhatti, in one way or another, helped the perpetrator Zaniar Matapour when he attacked in the center of Oslo in June.
Matapour killed 21 people and injured 21 outside the two pubs Per on the corner and London in central Oslo. He was apprehended by civilians shortly afterwards.
Elden: Offered to come home
This summer, before the police had laid charges against Bhatti, it was John Christian Elden who was Bhatti’s defender. He tells Aftenposten that all summer they offered that Bhatti should come home to Norway, if the police had a case they wanted to question him about.
According to Elden, the police stated that there was no case against Bhatti this summer. He thus canceled the trip home that was planned for mid-July and chose to stay in Pakistan.
– He said he was willing to listen at any time and left his address and contact information at the Norwegian embassy, says Elden.
Police attorney Myrold says that early in the investigation, several of the people who are now charged had witness status in the case.
– At a later stage, there were grounds for charging them with complicity in terrorist acts, she says.
Norwegian police in Pakistan
Bhatti landed in Pakistan with his family on 8 June. The plan was for him to return in mid-July, but he never got on the plane back to Norway. He was already in the police spotlight after the terrorist attack in central Oslo.
Since then, the police have worked to get Bhatti to return to Norway. There have also been employees from the police in Pakistan shortly before he was wanted internationally.
– It was to achieve good cooperation down there, says Myrold.
– Have you been in contact with Arfan Bhatti in any way?
– We cannot go into details about the work that is currently underway.
– What about the first days after he was wanted internationally?
– We have had a good dialogue with his defender. Due to what is going on, I cannot go into more detail about what that dialogue was about, replies Myrold.
Refuses to talk to the police
A total of four people have so far been charged in the case. Three of them have been arrested. So far, none of the accused have explained themselves to the police. One of the accused, a man in his 40s, began to explain himself, but then chose not to speak to the police. That’s what police attorney Myrold says.
For now, she does not want to say anything about what kind of role the police believe Bhatti and the two accused men have had in connection with the shooting. What we do know is that the police believe the man in his 40s must have helped plan the attack itself. That emerges from the charge against the man.