Norway mosque shooter jailed for minimum 21 years

A Norwegian court sentenceד a right-wing extremist to a minimum of 21 years in prison for a 2019 mosque attack near Oslo and for murdering his step-sister in a racially-motivated act.

He is found guilty of trying to “kill as many Muslims as possible,” though no one was seriously injured in the mosque attack.

“Philip Manshaus… is sentenced to 21 years of ‘forvaring,'” a court west of Oslo rules, using the Norwegian term for a custodial sentence that can be extended indefinitely.

A self-proclaimed neo-Nazi, 22-year-old Manshaus was arrested on August 10, 2019, after opening fire in the Al-Noor mosque in the affluent Oslo suburb of Baerum while wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet with a camera strapped to it.

Philip Manshaus is seated in court listening to his sentencing for terrorism and homicide in the Asker and Baerum district court west of Oslo on June 11, 2020 (Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB Scanpix / AFP)

Just three worshipers were in the mosque at the time. One of them, a 65-year-old man, overpowered Manshaus.

“Manshaus has said that his plan was not only to kill as many Muslims as possible but that he wanted to destabilize society and accelerate the race war,” the court says in its verdict.

The body of his 17-year-old stepsister, Johanne Zhangjia Ihle-Hansen, was later found in their home.

— AFP