OSLO, Norway (AP) - Five neo-Nazis have been detained in connection with the weekend stabbing death of a black teen-ager, which prompted a rally Sunday denouncing what was seen as a racially motivated slaying.
Hundreds of people rallied Sunday at the site where 15-year old Benjamin Hermansen was killed late Friday in the multiracial suburb of Holmlia as he was swapping cell phone covers with a friend.
Police detained three men in their 20s and two 17-year-old girls on Saturday, saying the suspects were active in the neo-Nazi group known as Bootboys, which has about 200 followers.
All five were charged with murder, which carries a sentence of up to 21 years. They were caught in an Oslo apartment filled with Nazi paraphernalia, police said. Police confiscated books by Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, and posters for ``white power'' concerts, as well as a pitbull and a snake.
Police said all five had criminal records, ranging from attempted murder to robbery and vandalism. Two of the men and one of the girls had been arrested in a stabbing incident in December but were released pending the trial.
Police inspector Finn Abrahamsen said he was shocked by the crime.
``I have served in Lebanon and Yugoslavia. There people were killed because of their race. I never thought this could happen in Norway,'' Abrahamsen was quoted as saying by the daily Dagbladet.
Hermansen, whose deceased father was from Ghana and whose mother is Norwegian, was a popular figure in his neighborhood, where he was active in fighting against racism. Last summer, he appeared on Norwegian television to talk about being assaulted by neo-Nazi youths during a soccer tournament in Denmark.
The stabbing took place shortly before midnight Friday. Norwegian newspapers reported that Hermansen tried to escape when he was attacked by the gang, but he slid on the ice and was stabbed several times in the stomach and chest. His Norwegian friend was not hurt.
``I wanted to be like him,'' one of Hermansen's friends, Victor Lopez, said at the rally. ``Benjamin cared about fairness. I think he's in paradise now.'' Teen-agers wept as he spoke in an address shown on national news.
In a press release Sunday, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg condemned the slaying and warned against the threat that racism and intolerance represent to Norwegian society.
