Czech officers ‘identify’ Norway mystery man

OSLO: The mysterious amnesiac man who turned up in Norway but could not remember his name or where he was from has been identified by the Czech police, their counterparts in Oslo said on Wednesday.

“We were informed tonight through Interpol that the Czech police had identified the man,” Oeyvind Torgersen, an Oslo police official told AFP.

“The Czech police went to his parents... we know his identity,” said Torgersen, but adding no further details.

The information may help bring to an end months of fruitless search to find out the identity of the man who spoke English with a Slavic accent, and known only as ‘John Smith’.

The news came just a day after Norwegian police released the man’s photos and details to the public.

The tall, young amnesiac was found helpless in the snow near a carwash in Oslo last December. How he got there, and from where, ‘Smith’ claims to have no idea.

“What apparently has happened is that I was robbed, I was for sure sexually assaulted, and then I was thrown onto a street in Oslo,” he told AFP on Wednesday.

“What might have happened is that they took advantage of the fact that Europe has open borders – this amazing European invention – and that they basically used Oslo as a garbage place to dump me,” he said, without knowing who ‘they’ are. — AFP