Oslo runs out of jail cells....

Gee, I could see this happening in Toronto, no?

Police in the Oslo region are having to turn away criminal suspects and convicts who otherwise should be held in remand custody. The reason: There's no room at the jails.

"We're in an extremely unfortunate situation," Hanne Kristin Rohde of the Oslo Police District told newspaper Aftenposten on Tuesday. "The problem is that we have no place to hold people.

"If the jails had more cells, we wouldn't need to release them."

But that's what the police are being forced to do, and right before the five-day Easter holiday weekend in Norway.

The prisons, especially those in the Oslo area, are filled to the brim, officials admit. During the last three weeks, 11 persons sentenced to remand custody have been released, while 10 other convicts who have shown up to serve court-ordered prison terms have been turned away. There are no available cells.

Among those released, reports Aftenposten, are three persons ordered held after they were arrested in a major narcotics case. In order to prevent any tampering with evidence, the three were also ordered held in isolation with restrictions on any correspondence with the outside world.