Task Force To Quell Biker War

A new Danish team will work with police in Sweden, Norway and Finland to quell a 2-year biker feud that has killed nine people in the Nordic countries, Denmark’s top criminal inspector said Tuesday.

The formation of such a task force in a country that has no national police reflects authorities’ increasing frustration at their inability to put a lid on the violence, which has also injured nearly 50 people.

Police in the four countries have been consulting with one another throughout the feud, but calls for concerted regional action have grown since an anti-tank grenade attack in Copenhagen on Sunday, the deadliest attack of the feud.

Denmark’s chief criminal inspector, Per Larsen, will head the force.

A grenade smashed into a building at the fortress-like Hells Angels compound where about 70 people were congregated at a bar, killing two and injuring 19 others.

No arrests were made, but authorities suspect members of the Hells Angels’ rivals, the Bandidos.

The feud has angered and bewildered people in the generally relaxed and safe Nordic countries.

“In Denmark, we have no tradition for organized crime,” Larsen said.

The government’s previous attempts to get tough have disappointed residents. Copenhagen’s mayor last month ordered the Hells Angels to leave the compound. But the bikers refused and police took no action to evict them.