Norwegian police have drawn fire from victims’ families after dropping the internal investigation into the slow police response to the joint terror attacks of 22 July, 2010.
Authorities in Oslo released a statement, which said that police have concluded an internal probe into the actions of officers after two families filed a formal complaint. The statement said that the investigation was stopped because nothing was found that suggested police acted unlawfully.
The news comes after a government report, issued last year, said that authorities had made a series of mistakes in their response to the events of 22 July 2010, when right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik bombed central Oslo before going on a shooting rampage on nearby Utoeya Island, killing 77 people in total. The news sparked a wealth of controversy in the Nordic country, prompting the complaints from victims’ loved ones.
At least family has spoken out in anger against the police’s decision.
Alf Vederhus, whose teenage son was killed at Utoeya, told reporters from the Dagsavisen daily newspaper, “Apparently, no one will ever learn from the grave mistakes that were made on July 22, not the police nor anyone else.”
He added, “I think internal affairs looked too lightly on the mistakes that were made.”