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Burzum’s Varg Vikernes, Neo-Nazi, Arrested in France on Terrorism Suspicions

Varg Vikernes in prison

Just four years after finishing 15 years of a 21-year sentence for murder, arson, and stockpiling explosives, the Norwegian musician Varg Vikernes, of notorious black-metal outfit Burzum, has been arrested by French police, reports Euronews.

The French radio network RTL reports that police in the Correze region picked up Vikernes upon the suspicion that he was planning a “massacre.” According to Euronews, Vikernes “is said to be one of the people to have received the manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik,” the far-right terrorist responsible for a 2011 car bombing in Oslo and subsequent massacre in Utoeya, Norway, which killed 77 people. In a 2011 blog post on Burzum’s website, however, Vikernes — an even more rabid neo-Nazi than Breivik, it would appear — suggests that Breivik was acting as a puppet of a vast, “sinister” Jewish conspiracy to subjugate pagans and right-wing Europeans like himself.

In 1994, Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison for the murder of Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth, a member of the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. He was also convicted of arson attacks on three churches. Upon his arrest, in 1993, police discovered a stockpile of 150 kg of explosives and 3000 rounds of ammunition in his home; it is speculated that he was planning to blow up Blitz House, an Oslo anti-fascist organization. While in prison, Vikernes wrote several books espousing European white-supremacist idologies, including Teutonic Mythology and Worldview and The Religion of the Blood. While on a prison leave in 2003, Vikernes hijacked a car at gunpoint; upon his subsequent arrest, 13 months were added to his sentence, but he was ultimately released on parole in 2009, after serving 15 years of a 21-year sentence.

After leaving prison, Vikernes relocated to France and resumed recording music; Burzum has released four albums since his release. While he claims to have renounced his ties to extremist groups, he has continued to spew hate on his blog. In January, he published a post entitled, “An Introduction to Our Ancestral Cult.” Railing against “the Jewish-owned mass media/entertainment industry” and proclaiming that “everything European is at risk of being destroyed,” he concluded, “Our parent generation is pretty much lost to our cause, but don’t worry; we – the young (and the fairly young…) are the future! Those of us who survive the coming war will build a new Europe, when we emerge victorious from the ashes of the Judeo-Christian and Liberal-Socialistic anti-Europe. We will no longer live under the scourge of the star of David, the crucifix, the red star or the dollar sign, and we will rid ourselves of the Jewish yoke – and of course their Muslims proxy army in Europe too.”