Poland detains customers of firm linked to Norway attacks

Polish police have arrested a dozen customers of a firm that sold explosive fuses to Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bomb attack and shooting spree in Norway in July, prosecutors said yesterday.

Magdalena Prus, spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office on the western city of Poznan, said the individuals were suspected of the “manufacture, processing, use of and trading in explosives”.

Police raided 85 homes of customers of the Poznan-based online firm which is run by a 26-year-old chemistry student.

Behring Breivik is thought to have used the fuses he purchased to carry out tests or even for his July 22 bombing near a government building which killed eight people in central Oslo.

After the bombing, the right-wing extremist systematically shot dead 69 people at a summer camp of the ruling Labour Party’s youth wing on the island of Utoeya. According to the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, Behring Breivik first contacted the firm in November 2010 to ask the price of a viscose fuse with a combustion rate of one centimetre per second.

The firm responded that one metre of fuse cost one zloty (0.23 euros, $0.32), and arranged an order for 15 metres, for a total of 45 zloty including postage to Norway.

Polish police were tipped off about the company’s role by their Norwegian counterparts.