An Iranian-born Norwegian man has been found guilty of terrorism over a 2022 attack on an LGBTQ+ festival in Oslo and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Two people were killed and nine were seriously wounded in the shooting at three locations, chiefly outside the London Pub, a popular gay bar, on June 25 2022.
The Oslo District Court said Zaniar Matapour, 45, fired 10 rounds with a machine gun and eight shots with a handgun into the crowd.
Prosecutors said Matapour has sworn allegiance to the so-called Islamic State (IS) group.
During the trial, both the prosecution and the defence agreed that Matapour had shot into a crowd and there was no disagreement that the shooting was terror motivated.
However, Matapour’s lawyer Marius Dietrichson had sought an acquittal, saying his client had been provoked to carry out the attack by a Danish intelligence agent who was pretending to be a high-ranking member of IS.
The shooting shocked Norway, which has a relatively low crime rate but has experienced so-called lone wolf attacks in recent decades.
