OSLO, June 7. /TASS/. Norway's Supreme Court has agreed to examine an appeal by an 18-year-old Russian citizen whom the police detained in downtown Oslo last year while carrying a small-capacity explosive device. He was sentenced to nine months in jail for illegal handling of explosives.
Norsk Telegrambyra news agency said on Wednesday the youngster, who was only 17 years old at the moment of detention, insisted that there had been no malicious intent in his actions.
He was sentenced under article 191 of Norway’s Criminal Code that envisions jail terms of up to ten years for illegal handling of weapons, explosives or munitions. The judges agreed with the investigators’ conclusions that the young man had been exposed to ideological radicalization and had harbored plans to set off an explosive in the downtown.
The teenager claims, however, he had assembled the device from a tear gas canister, a kitchen gas burner and wire out of sheer curiosity and had hoped to set it off while on a hike with a company of friends.
His lawyer insists that any intention to commit a crime was out of the question in this case.
The court issued its verdict on the young man in October 2017 but he was released as early as in January 2018, since he had spent the greater part of his rather short term in pretrial detention.
In March, an appeals court revised the sentence issued by the first instance court and mitigated the nine months in jail to twelve months and twenty-four months’ probation.
The investigators demanded twenty-four months in jail.
The man will face a three-month jail term again if the commits new offenses.
He came to Norway together with his parents in 2010 from North Caucasus as a refugee and received a residential permit subsequently.
The Russian Embassy in Oslo said in a commentary on the case earlier the young man’s convictions had taken shape during his life in Norway.