The 37-year-old man who confessed to being the author of a deadly archery attack in Norway was handed over to health services "after an assessment of his condition," the prosecutor in charge of the case said on Friday. , fueling questions about his sanity.

Doubts hang over the mental health, and therefore the criminal responsibility, of Espen Andersen Bråthen, the Dane who admitted to having killed five people and having injured three others on Wednesday in Kongsberg (south-east) where he resides.

Bråthen had started undergoing a psychiatric evaluation on Thursday, the conclusions of which are expected to take several months. A judge is due to rule this Friday on his pre-trial detention of Bråthen, without the physical presence of the suspect. Authorities have requested four weeks' detention, the first two of which are in solitary confinement. In the event of a positive decision, he would not be imprisoned but left under the responsibility of doctors, said the prosecutor.

While the attacks bear the mark of a "terrorist act", they claim, the Norwegian authorities do not rule out the possibility of mental disorder either.

"There is no doubt that the act itself has appearances which suggest that it may be a terrorist act, but it is now important that the investigation progress and that the motivations of the suspect be clarified," said PST security chief Hans Sverre Sjøvold on Thursday.

"He is a person who has been going back and forth in the health system for a while," he stressed, however.

World

What we know about the suspect in the archery killings in Norway

World

Five people killed and two injured by a man armed with a bow, the attack appears to be "a terrorist act"

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