Embassy siege raises security questions

Press, 12 September 1987, Page 10

Embassy siege raises security questions

NZPA-Reuter Oslo A violent occupation of the Iranian embassy in Oslo, in which one diplomat was wounded, has raised questions of security in a capital normally free of terrorist attacks.

The mission was stormed on Thursday morning by 11 opponents of Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — 10 men and a woman — who held seven people hostage for three hours before surrendering to armed police.

The siege appeared to be the main focus of a rash of protests by a Marxist opposition group, which included the ransacking and occupation of Iran Air’s Paris office and the wrecking of the airline’s office in Frankfurt, West Germany. Commenting on the Oslo siege, one diplomat based in the city told Reuters: “This is worrying because it shows the limits and dangers in a society where even the King and the Prime Minister can stroll through town unguarded.” The Justice Minister, Helen Boesterud, told a news conference after the siege: “We have good security at Oslo’s 42 foreign embassies, but must accept that no matter how good it is, we cannot guard ourselves 100 per cent.”

“I don't want to make any judgments on how this incident will affect our security methods until we have more information.”

The police sealed off several blocks round the embassy in an exclusive residential district of central Oslo after the occupa-

tion, but were later refused permission to search the mission for arms believed to have been carried by the group.

The attackers were members of the Organisation of the Guerrillas of the People’s Fedayeen of Iran. The police said some of them entered Norway from Sweden — a border with no passport checks. Iranian Embassy personnel, who asked the police to storm the building, later criticised them for being too slow to act. Oslo’s deputy police chief, Lasse Qvigstad, rejected the criticism, saying further police action could have led to unnecessary bloodshed. Mr Qvigstad told a news conference late on Thursday that the Foreign Ministry would formally request police access to the Iranian embassy today, but said the question of whether the arms were in the embassy remained open.

He said the 11 would probably be charged today. Seven had apparently travelled from Sweden, two from France and one from West Germany. The eleventh had told police he lived in Norway. Iran’s Oslo embassy was peacefully occupied by Iranian students in 1976 and again in 1981. Both times, Norwegian authorities expelled the demonstrators to Sweden.