Dane pleads guilty to murders in Norway knife and arrow attack

A Danish man pleaded guilty at his trial Wednesday stabbing five people to death and shooting arrows at 11 others in Norway last year.

Espen Andersen Brathen, a 38-year-old Dane living in Norway, is accused of using a bow and arrow inside and outside a supermarket before stabbing five other residents to death in their homes or on the street in October, terrorizing the normally peaceful southeastern town of Kongsberg.

Brathen entered the pleas when asked to respond to the charges of murder and attempted murder at the court in the town of Hokksund. “Everything, I admit everything,” he said, at the start of his trial.

While Norwegian police had initially suspected some kind of terror attack, they quickly believed it was the work of an unbalanced individual.

Brathen had been living for years in Kongsberg, home to about 25,000 people some 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of the capital Oslo, and authorities have said he has a medical history, although details have not been made public.

The Norwegian security services PST, which are responsible for counter-terrorism, also said the man had been on their radar.

He was arrested 35 minutes after the first reports of an attack and was swiftly moved to a medical institution.

Three experts who observed him concluded that the suspect was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

Both the prosecution and the defense argued that he could not be held criminally responsible and advocated a psychiatric commitment rather than a prison sentence.

According to the prosecution, Brathen was armed with a bow, 60 arrows, and four knives on the day of the attacks.

Among his victims, there were four women and one man of age approximately 52 to 78.

The trial is scheduled to last until June 17, with a verdict expected in the concerned weeks.