Terrorist? Neo-Nazi metal rocker Varg Vikernes arrested as precaution

More details emerged Wednesday concerning the case of a Norwegian “black metal” musician and neo-Nazi arrested on suspicion of planning a “a large terrorist act.”

French authorities arrested Varg Vikernes and his wife Tuesday at a home near Salon-la-Tour, France. They remained in custody at a local police station.

French police told the Wall Street Journal that Vikernes was the “author of aggressive racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic comments on Internet forums.” He had been under surveillance for some time and was found with several weapons.

Euronews quoted French officials as saying they found no evidence that Vikernes had a specific target or plot. They said arresting him was a preventive measure.

A French law enforcement source told the BBC that officials feared “there were several indications that made the services fear he could possibly carry out a violent act.”

Vikernes’ former attorney in Norway, John Christian Elden, was quoted as saying that the evidence against the singer was not particularly strong. It’s “less than what Norwegian Police Security Service tend to have every time they arrest Islamists in Norway and release them a short time later.”

Vikernes is an alleged sympathizer of mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, according to the Associated Press. Breivik killed scores at a Norway youth camp, as the L.A. Times previously reported.

Here’s more background on the case from AP:

Vikernes gained notoriety in the 1990s after he was convicted of manslaughter in the stabbing death of a fellow band member and for arson attacks on three churches.

Vikernes’ French wife, Marie Cachet, was also arrested, prosecutors said. She had recently acquired four rifles, the Interior Ministry said. Investigators are looking into how the firearms were acquired and what they were for, it added.

Police said Vikernes’ “violent” Internet postings were proof he posed a potential threat.

Vikernes, 40, was known in Norwegian black metal circles in the early 1990s under the stage name Count Grishnackh. He played in various black metal bands, including the band Mayhem. Black metal is described as an extreme subgenre of metal music.

In 1994, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison for the manslaughter of Mayhem band member Oystein Aarseth and arson attacks against three churches. He was released from prison in 2009 after serving 16 years.

He has continued to record music under the name Burzum.

French authorities described Vikernes as a “sympathizer” of Breivik who received his manifesto accusing Muslims of destroying European society. On his blog, Vikernes acknowledged reading the manifesto, but appears to distance himself from Breivik and at one point refers to him as a “nutcase.”

Breivik was convicted last year of killing 77 people, most of them teenagers, in 2011 attacks that shook Norway. Breivik first bombed government headquarters, killing eight people, before going on a shooting massacre on Utoya island that left 69 dead at a summer camp for young members of the governing Labor Party.

The confessed killer said the attacks were justified because his victims were traitors for embracing multiculturalism.

A five-judge panel declared Breivik sane and handed him a 21-year prison sentence that can be extended for as long as he’s considered dangerous to society. Legal experts say that probably means he will be locked up for life.

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