A man has set himself on fire in Oslo outside a court hearing the case of notorious gunman Anders Breivik. The badly injured man was taken away in ambulance after the flame was extinguished by police.

­The incident happened near the security examination point as a man doused himself with some flammable liquid from a coke bottle and tried to enter the Oslo District Courthouse building with the flames covering his head and torso.

At the doors of the courthouse the man made a u-turn and started running around knocking down security fences and shouting “shoot me, shoot me!”

The man then fell on the ground screaming in pain as police stripped him of his burning sweater and hat. The officers poured several bottles of water on him to extinguish the flames.

The man is now in Ulleval University Hospital with serious injuries to his chest and stomach. Witness reports suggest he could also have suffered severe burns to his head as he was aflame all the way from the top of his head down to the waist.