Three men were acquitted for lack of evidence on Tuesday in Norway’s first terrorism trial since anti-terror laws were strengthened after the 2001 attacks in the US.
The Oslo District Court said prosecutors had failed to prove charges that Arfan Bhatti and two other suspects had plotted attacks against Israeli and US embassies in 2006 — attacks that never took place. All three are Norwegian citizens.
The court found Bhatti guilty, however, of being behind a shooting at a synagogue in Oslo on Sept. 17, 2006, but concluded it had not been an act of terror. No one was injured in the incident.
Bhatti, 30, was also found guilty of the illegal weapons possession, making threats and being an accomplice in the attempted murder of a Norwegian businessman in 2006.
Bhatti, who has a criminal record, was sentenced to eight years in prison with the possibility of an extension if authorities believe it would be unsafe to release him.
The two other defendants — Andreas Bog Kristiansen, 28, and Ibrahim Oezbabacan, 29 — were released after being acquitted.
Kristiansen was found not guilty of plotting attacks against embassies, while Oezbabacan was found innocent of firing shots or being an accomplice in the synagogue attack.
The charges of plotting embassy attacks partly were based on a police recording of the suspects talking about ways to attack the embassies.
The court described the monitored conversation as “frightening,” but did not find sufficient proof that it was “a concrete, final and seriously meant agreement” to attack the embassies.
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