CHILLING pictures and video emerged yesterday of the bow and arrow bloodbath launched in a supermarket by a crazed killer.
Footage was released at the start of trial of Espen Bråthen, 38, showing him running amok with the weapon in a Co-op Extra store in Kongsberg, Norway last October.
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The white-vested maniac bursts into the store brandishing his bow and launches a quickfire barrage of arrows at innocent shoppers.
Unstable loner Brathen’s spree – in which he also used hunting knives – killed five victims and wounded two, including a police officer hit by an arrow in his back.
Asked by a judge for his plea yesterday, Brathen replied: “I admit guilt.”
The court heard he stalked the streets of the city with 80 arrows and several knifes – but all five of his victims died from stab wounds.
He is also accused of the attempted murder of 11 people using his bow and arrow.
Twisted Brathen told the court he thought he was going blind and then decided to go out and kill while he could still see.
The maniac said he believed he would be reborn again and enjoy a better life if he killed.
He said: “I got the idea that in order to be born again, in a good place, I had to kill. I thought, now I can go out and kill before I go blind.
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“There is no danger of recurrence, because now I know that I will not go blind and that it is wrong to kill.
“I’ll never kill again. I regret what I have done and wish those I killed were alive. That was not the intention and I very much regret it.”
Brathen’s lawyer, Fredrik Neumann, said that his client is a very ill person.
Prosecutor and the defence counsel agreed that Bråthen – who claims to be a Muslim – is insane and should be sentenced to compulsory mental health care.
But their application will be decided by a judge.
Bråthen unleashed a 35-minute killing spree in a town in Norway, as cops desperately hunted him down following reports he was randomly spraying arrows at shoppers.
He has been described as an “unstable” loner who once threatened to kill his dad.
The horrific attack unfolded in the small town of Kongsberg, home to about 25,000 people 50 miles west of Oslo after about 6.30pm local time.
As well as the five killed, who were all aged between 50 and 70, two people were also wounded.
Bråthen, a Danish national who lives in the Kongsberg area and is said to have psychiatric problems.
According to court documents and neighbours, Bråthen was an “unstable” loner who owned a collection of weapons and rarely left his flat as he suffered mental health issues and was estranged from his family.
He was born and always lived in Norway, but has Danish citizenship and has been in trouble with police several times, the most recent in May 2020.
On May 29, he entered his parent’s house and ordered them all to leave, threatening to kill his dad.
After he left, his shocked relatives found a Colt revolver pistol on the sofa.
A court then issued a restraining order barring him from seeing his mum and dad, which he breached months later.
Neighbours of the alleged killer also told Aftenposten, Norway’s largest newspaper, they saw him training with weapons in his garden.
Described as doing martial arts in a “brutal fighting style” with “a club or baton”, he caught the attention of the police who were said to have been pictured in his garden with helmets on one occasion.
Other ex-neighbours, Silje Limstrand, 22, and Gudoon Hersi, 21, told the newspaper they were terrified of Bråthen, who would make racist comments and act in a threatening and bizarre way – often pacing up and down the street.
Bråthen, a Muslim convert, was on a terror watchlist and also made a chilling Facebook video.
The shaven-headed suspect reads in English in the clip from a note saying: “Hello. I am a messenger and I come with a warning.
“Is this really what you want? It is time. Bear witness that I am a Muslim.”
Attacks on random people in public places are a recurring modus operandi among extremist Islamists carrying out terror in the West.
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