Related News
'Never again': Norway sets up July 22 commission
August 13, 2011, Saturday
|
Online Edition
Online Edition
Three weeks to the day after it was hit by the most murderous attacks on its soil since World War II, Norway yesterday presented a commission tasked with determining what lessons to draw from the carnage and ensure nothing similar happens again.
"Thousands of people across the country need help and care. For them, it is vital to get answers to the questions: What happened? And why did it happen?" Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told reporters.
"It is also important for us as a nation. We must draw information from these terrorist attacks. The goal is for this never to happen again. The goal is more security," he said.
Survivors, relatives of victims and the media have asked a growing number of questions about the July 22 attacks that left 77 people dead.
Criticism has especially focused on the time it took police to arrest 32-year-old right-wing extremist Ander Behring Breivik and halt his deadly rampage, as well as the intelligence service's failure to spot him during his years of preparations for the massacre.
On the day of the attacks, just over an hour passed between the first desperate calls to police from Utoeya island and the arrest of the killer by a special unit sent from Oslo, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) away.
By the time Behring Breivik was arrested, he had killed 69 people, many of them teenagers, on the island where the ruling Labour Party's youth wing was hosting a summer camp.
Of course, police were already dealing with a chaotic situation, as the killer shortly before had set off a car bomb outside government offices in Oslo, killing another eight people.
Behring Breivik has confessed to both attacks, insisting targeting Stoltenberg's Labour Party was part of a "crusade" to halt a "Muslim invasion" and multiculturalism in Europe.
Facing criticism from some that a faster response might have saved lives, Norwegian police have been forced to explain their handling of the Utoeya massacre, including why they set off for the island on a boat instead of a helicopter, and why for "tactical" reasons they did not take the shortest route to the scene of the deadly shooting spree.
Then yesterday Behring Breivik's lawyer Geir Lippestad told the Aftenposten daily his client had attempted to call police 10 times from Utoeya in the midst of his shooting rampage with the aim of turning himself in, but that eight of the calls had gone unanswered.
Police refused to comment on the information, only acknowledging that they received at least one call from the killer on the day of the attacks.
Norwegian intelligence service PST has also been called on to clarify whether it had paid enough attention to extremist groups and individuals, especially in light of a report published earlier this year in which it concluded that "right-wing and left-wing extremists groups do not represent a serious threat."
PST chief Janne Kristiansen has already tried to defuse that criticism, insisting after the attacks that Behring Breivik was a "lone wolf" who "even the Stasi (secret police) in East Germany would not have detected."
Behring Breivik had been reported to the PST in March after he purchased a small amount of chemicals from a Polish firm, but the agency deemed the matter harmless and did not follow up.
"We need an overview of all the things that worked well... but also of all that did not work well, openly and without embellishment," Stoltenberg said.
The 10-member commission, which has not been tasked to probe the attacks but simply to go through them and evaluate the response, will be headed by lawyer Alexandra Bech Gjoerv.
Two former police officers, a former intelligence service chief, a doctor, an international terrorism expert and a communications professor figure among the commission members.
The commission will begin work immediately and is scheduled to complete its evaluation by August 10, 2012.
-AFP
"Thousands of people across the country need help and care. For them, it is vital to get answers to the questions: What happened? And why did it happen?" Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told reporters.
"It is also important for us as a nation. We must draw information from these terrorist attacks. The goal is for this never to happen again. The goal is more security," he said.
Survivors, relatives of victims and the media have asked a growing number of questions about the July 22 attacks that left 77 people dead.
Criticism has especially focused on the time it took police to arrest 32-year-old right-wing extremist Ander Behring Breivik and halt his deadly rampage, as well as the intelligence service's failure to spot him during his years of preparations for the massacre.
On the day of the attacks, just over an hour passed between the first desperate calls to police from Utoeya island and the arrest of the killer by a special unit sent from Oslo, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) away.
By the time Behring Breivik was arrested, he had killed 69 people, many of them teenagers, on the island where the ruling Labour Party's youth wing was hosting a summer camp.
Of course, police were already dealing with a chaotic situation, as the killer shortly before had set off a car bomb outside government offices in Oslo, killing another eight people.
Behring Breivik has confessed to both attacks, insisting targeting Stoltenberg's Labour Party was part of a "crusade" to halt a "Muslim invasion" and multiculturalism in Europe.
Facing criticism from some that a faster response might have saved lives, Norwegian police have been forced to explain their handling of the Utoeya massacre, including why they set off for the island on a boat instead of a helicopter, and why for "tactical" reasons they did not take the shortest route to the scene of the deadly shooting spree.
Then yesterday Behring Breivik's lawyer Geir Lippestad told the Aftenposten daily his client had attempted to call police 10 times from Utoeya in the midst of his shooting rampage with the aim of turning himself in, but that eight of the calls had gone unanswered.
Police refused to comment on the information, only acknowledging that they received at least one call from the killer on the day of the attacks.
Norwegian intelligence service PST has also been called on to clarify whether it had paid enough attention to extremist groups and individuals, especially in light of a report published earlier this year in which it concluded that "right-wing and left-wing extremists groups do not represent a serious threat."
PST chief Janne Kristiansen has already tried to defuse that criticism, insisting after the attacks that Behring Breivik was a "lone wolf" who "even the Stasi (secret police) in East Germany would not have detected."
Behring Breivik had been reported to the PST in March after he purchased a small amount of chemicals from a Polish firm, but the agency deemed the matter harmless and did not follow up.
"We need an overview of all the things that worked well... but also of all that did not work well, openly and without embellishment," Stoltenberg said.
The 10-member commission, which has not been tasked to probe the attacks but simply to go through them and evaluate the response, will be headed by lawyer Alexandra Bech Gjoerv.
Two former police officers, a former intelligence service chief, a doctor, an international terrorism expert and a communications professor figure among the commission members.
The commission will begin work immediately and is scheduled to complete its evaluation by August 10, 2012.
-AFP
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
