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 Islamic State group.
Matapour was overpowered by bystanders after the attack and arrested. Following the attack, a Pride parade was cancelled, with police saying they could not guarantee security.
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The shooting shocked Norway, which has a relatively low crime rate but has experienced a series of “lone wolf” attacks by individuals in recent decades, including one of the worst mass shootings in Europe. In 2011, a right-wing extremist killed 69 people on the island of Utoya after setting off a bomb in Oslo that left eight dead.
Six days before the attack, Norway’s external intelligence agency, E-Tjenesten, learned from an undercover agent that a possible action was expected in a Nordic country and the information was passed to the domestic security service.
Matapour had pleaded innocent via his lawyer. He was examined by a court-appointed psychiatrist who concluded that he was sane at the time of the attack.
Prosecutors had asked for a 30-year sentence. Matapour’s lawyer had sought acquittal, saying his client had been provoked to carry out the attack by an E-Tjenesten agent who was pretending to be a high-ranking member of the Islamic State group.
The trial started in March and ended on May 16.