Norway killer: 'I would have done it again'
Source: Agencies |
April 18, 2012, Wednesday
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NORWEGIAN gunman Anders Behring Breivik insisted yesterday he would massacre 77 people all over again, calling his July rampage the most "spectacular" attack by a nationalist militant since World War II.
Reading a prepared statement in court, the anti-Muslim extremist lashed out at Norwegian and European governments for embracing immigration and multiculturalism.
He claimed to be speaking as a commander of an anti-Islam militant group he called the Knights Templar - a group that prosecutors say does not exist.
Maintaining he acted out of "goodness, not evil" to prevent a wider civil war, Breivik vowed: "I would have done it again."
Pressed by prosecutors to explain what he meant, he compared his attacks to the US dropping atomic bombs on Japan during World War II.
"They did it for something good, to prevent further war," he said.
Breivik has five days to explain why he set off a bomb in Oslo's government district on July 22, killing eight people, and then gunned down 69 others, mostly teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp outside the Norwegian capital. He denies criminal guilt, saying he was acting in self-defense, and claims the targets were part of a conspiracy to "deconstruct" Norway's cultural identity.
"The attacks on July 22 were a preventive strike. I acted in self-defense on behalf of my people, my city, my country," he said as he finished his statement, in essence a summary of the 1,500-page manifesto he posted online before the attacks. "I therefore demand to be found innocent of the present charges."
He compared Norway's Labor Party youth wing to the Hitler Youth and called their annual summer gathering an "indoctrination" camp. But he said he would have preferred attacking a conference of Norwegian journalists instead, but wasn't able to carry out that "operation."
Breivik's testimony was delayed after one of the five judges hearing the case was dismissed for his comments online the day after the attack - comments that said Breivik deserves the death penalty. Lawyers on all sides had requested that lay judge Thomas Indreboe be taken off the trial, saying the comments violated his impartiality. He was replaced by backup lay judge Elisabeth Wisloeff.
Norway doesn't have the death penalty. If found mentally sane - the key issue to be decided in the trial - Breivik could face a maximum 21-year prison sentence or an alternate custody arrangement that would keep him locked up as long as he is viewed a menace to society.
Reading a prepared statement in court, the anti-Muslim extremist lashed out at Norwegian and European governments for embracing immigration and multiculturalism.
He claimed to be speaking as a commander of an anti-Islam militant group he called the Knights Templar - a group that prosecutors say does not exist.
Maintaining he acted out of "goodness, not evil" to prevent a wider civil war, Breivik vowed: "I would have done it again."
Pressed by prosecutors to explain what he meant, he compared his attacks to the US dropping atomic bombs on Japan during World War II.
"They did it for something good, to prevent further war," he said.
Breivik has five days to explain why he set off a bomb in Oslo's government district on July 22, killing eight people, and then gunned down 69 others, mostly teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp outside the Norwegian capital. He denies criminal guilt, saying he was acting in self-defense, and claims the targets were part of a conspiracy to "deconstruct" Norway's cultural identity.
"The attacks on July 22 were a preventive strike. I acted in self-defense on behalf of my people, my city, my country," he said as he finished his statement, in essence a summary of the 1,500-page manifesto he posted online before the attacks. "I therefore demand to be found innocent of the present charges."
He compared Norway's Labor Party youth wing to the Hitler Youth and called their annual summer gathering an "indoctrination" camp. But he said he would have preferred attacking a conference of Norwegian journalists instead, but wasn't able to carry out that "operation."
Breivik's testimony was delayed after one of the five judges hearing the case was dismissed for his comments online the day after the attack - comments that said Breivik deserves the death penalty. Lawyers on all sides had requested that lay judge Thomas Indreboe be taken off the trial, saying the comments violated his impartiality. He was replaced by backup lay judge Elisabeth Wisloeff.
Norway doesn't have the death penalty. If found mentally sane - the key issue to be decided in the trial - Breivik could face a maximum 21-year prison sentence or an alternate custody arrangement that would keep him locked up as long as he is viewed a menace to society.
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