Eight years imprisonment for Norwegian man who threatened mass murder in Budapest
The Budapest Court of Appeal has sentenced a Norwegian man living in Budapest to eight years imprisonment for terrorism threats and child sexual abuse material. The ruling was announced in his absence after he began insulting the court.
Final court ruling in case of Norwegian man threatening mass murder
The Budapest Court of Appeal sentenced a Norwegian man living in Budapest to eight years imprisonment for allegedly planning a mass murder and storing child sexual abuse material on his mobile phone, according to HVG. The sentence is less severe than the ten years imposed by the court of first instance.
The appellate court found the defendant guilty of continuing terrorism threat offences and possession of pornographic material depicting a person under 12 years old. When imposing the sentence, the court considered the passage of time as a mitigating circumstance, as well as the fact that the man was subject to the most stringent precautionary measure throughout the proceedings.
The ruling was announced in the defendant's absence: since he was unwilling to communicate with the judge through an interpreter and subsequently began insulting the court, he was removed from the courtroom.
According to the factual findings of the court of first instance, the man, who does not speak Hungarian and suffers from mental illness, created and shared videos on a video-sharing platform in which he threatened to kill people. Following notification by foreign authorities, Hungarian law enforcement apprehended him in 2023 in his rented flat in Ferencváros. In the judgment, the judge emphasised that the defendant threatened a massacre of greater scale than Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011.
The appellate court otherwise upheld the first-instance judgment: the man was banned from Hungarian territory for ten years and barred from all employment that would involve contact with minors. The ruling is final and not subject to appeal.
Source: HVG