Police in Bergen have reopened an investigation into a racially motivated attack on a local football player last month. The attack sparked strong public protests and a torchlit parade, and police were harshly criticized for initially dropping their investigation after just a week.
“That was clearly a mistake,” said the publicly appointed lawyer for 25-year-old Hamse Ali, a local football player who was attacked by as many as six men while walking home through a park after a match in September. He suffered a brain concussion, broken nose and the loss of four teeth during the attack in Bergen’s Nygårdsparken on September 21.
Ali’s local football club, SK Djerv, had won the match by a score of 7-0 and celebrated in the clubhouse before Ali walked home through the park. He said two men whom he’d never seen before hurled racist verbal attacks at him before being joined by four others, beat him and ran off before police arrived after calls for help. The police couldn’t find any traces of the men and failed to retrieve photos from video surveillance cameras before they were erased after a week.
“We had little detailed descriptions of the attackers and nothing to go after,” police spokesman Per Øyvind Valland told state broadaster NRK. Public pressure prompted police to reopen the case, however, and Ali has expressed gratitude for all the support he’s received after the attack attracted widespread media coverage. Police have since also received tips from passersby and retrieved video of the area from another building in the vicinity.
NewsinEnglish.no staff