French wife of Norwegian neo-Nazi released from custody: source

PARIS - Agence France-Presse

Officers from the Interior Security Intelligence Services (DCRI) store pieces of evidence in a car on July 18, 2013 near the main police station in Brive-la-Gaillarde, southwestern France, where Norwegian black metal rocker and convicted killer, Kristian Vikernes, is still in custody and questionned by the anti-terrorist services. AFP photo

A French woman arrested with her husband, Norwegian extremist Kristian Vikernes who is suspected of plotting a "major terrorist act", has been freed from custody, a judicial source said Wednesday.
 
Vikernes and his wife Marie Cachet were arrested on Tuesday at their home in a village in the central Correze region of France. The interior ministry said Vikernes, a black metal musician and convicted killer, was "close to the neo-Nazi movement" and could have been preparing a "major terrorist act".
 
Vikernes, who also goes by the name "Varg", Norwegian for "wolf", had been under surveillance for several years.
 
But anti-terrorism authorities in Paris opened a probe into the father-of-three at the beginning of the month after his wife purchased weapons -- albeit legally as she has a permit.
 
Officers seized five long-range weapons at their home including four 22 caliber Long Rifles.
 
Vikernes is notorious for having stabbed to death a guitarist from another black metal band. He spent 16 years in prison for the crime.
 
Interior Minister Manuel Valls conceded that they had as yet identified "no target, no plan", but intelligence chiefs had decided it was important "to act before and not afterwards".
 
"The DCRI (French domestic intelligence service) considered that messages he had posted on the Internet expressed huge violence." Vikernes' former lawyer in his murder trial on Wednesday criticised France for the arrest, calling the charges against him "thin."