Verdict expected for Iranian-born Norwegian man charged in deadly 2022 Oslo LGBT+ festival attack

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A verdict is expected Thursday in the case of an Iranian-born Norwegian man who is charged with terrorism in a 2022 attack at an LGBTQ+ festival in Oslo, Norway, in which two people were killed and nine seriously wounded at three locations.

The Oslo District Court is to rule on whether Zaniar Matapour fired 10 rounds with a machine gun and eight with a handgun into the crowd, chiefly outside the London Pub, a popular gay bar, on June 25, 2022.

Prosecutors said Matapour, 45, a Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group.

Extensive video material of the attack was presented in court. The verdict will not be read in court but will be sent out electronically. Matapour will have the verdict read to him in prison, the court said.

Matapour was overpowered by bystanders after the attack and arrested. Following the attack, a Pride parade was canceled, with police saying they could not guarantee security.

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.

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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 May 16.