Published October 29,2025
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A man who killed his stepsister and attacked a mosque in Norway six years ago has been sentenced to 21 years in prison in a retrial.
The Oslo District Court ruled on Wednesday that he is of sound mind, and, according to the NTB news agency, also concluded that a prison sentence was sufficient to protect society.
In the original trial in 2020, the man was sentenced to 21 years in secure detention for murder and terrorism, with a minimum term of 14 years.
The difference between this and the sentence now imposed is that in Norway, preventive detention potentially means that the perpetrator's time behind bars can be extended repeatedly if he continues to be classified as dangerous – and he may therefore never be released.
One example of this is the Norwegian right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in attacks in Oslo and on the island of Utøya in 2011 and was also sentenced to 21 years in preventive detention. In his case, it is unclear whether he will ever be released.
Armed with several firearms, the man now convicted again attacked a mosque in Bærum, about 20 kilometres west of Oslo, in August 2019.
The perpetrator, who was only 21 years old at the time and inspired by a deadly terrorist attack in New Zealand, was overpowered by worshippers and subsequently arrested without anyone in the mosque being seriously injured.
However, police later found the body of his 17-year-old stepsister in his parents' house, whom he had killed with four shots from a hunting rifle.
The trial of the mosque attacker was resumed in 2024 after a new expert opinion raised doubts about his sanity at the time of the crime.
His defence lawyer argued that he had been insane and psychotic at the time and had now distanced himself from his previous actions and right-wing extremist views.
