Norway bus murder suspect 'due to be deported'

Police say the motive for the bus hijack and stabbings are still not clear

A man accused of hijacking a bus and killing three people in Norway was a South Sudanese asylum-seeker who had been due for deportation, police said.

Police said the suspect had been living at an asylum seekers' centre in the town of Aardal, and had been due to fly to Spain via Oslo to have his asylum application reviewed there.

A 19-year-old woman and two men in their fifties were stabbed to death.

The motive for the attacks in western Norway is still not clear.

An official at the organisation which runs the asylum centre said the attack had been completely unexpected.

"We did not detect any early warning signs," said Tor Brekke, of the Hero organisation, according to AFP.

The suspect, whose name has not been disclosed by the authorities, is being treated for knife wounds at a hospital in Bergen.

He was born in 1982 and had been staying at the refugee centre in Aardal for several months, police said.

His application for asylum in Norway had been turned down, because he had made an earlier asylum bid in Spain.

According to Norwegian police, the authorities had been preparing to fly him to Oslo on Tuesday, and then on to Spain.

Firefighters said they overpowered the suspect after arriving at the scene of what they initially thought was a road accident.

The three people killed were the Norwegian driver and a Swedish man - both in their fifties - and a Norwegian woman, aged 19.

They were travelling with the suspect on a long-distance bus between the mountainous region of Valdres and Oslo.

One witness, who gave his name as Leif, told the TV2 news channel: "The bus was on the side of the road, so we stopped our car and ran over."

"It was impossible to open the doors. Then we saw a dark-skinned person inside the bus. At first, we thought he was trying to get out but then saw he was moving around with a knife, and we realised that the situation was quite different," he said.