Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
ANDERS BEHRING BREIVIK HAS defended his massacre of 77 people, insisting he would do it again and calling the bomb-and-shooting 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-communist” resistance movement and an anti-Islam militant group he called the Knights Templar. Prosecutors have said the group 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.”
Breivik’s testimony was delayed after a citizen judge was dismissed for his comments online the day following the July 22 attack that Breivik deserves the death penalty. Lawyers on all sides had requested that lay judge Thomas Indreboe be taken off the trial.
He was replaced by backup lay judge Elisabeth Wisloeff.
Breivik is being tried by a panel of two professional judges and three lay judges, local politicians who are appointed for four-year terms and participate on an equal basis as the judges in deciding guilt and sentencing. The system is designed to let ordinary people have a role in the Norwegian justice system, though the lead judge still runs the trial.
As at the start of the trial yesterday, Breivik entered the court smirking before flashing a clenched-fist salute.
Breivik has five days to explain why he set off a bomb in Oslo’s government district, killing eight, and then gunned down 69 at a Labor Party youth camp outside the Norwegian capital. He denies criminal guilt saying he was acting in self-defence.
Survivors of the massacre have worried he will use his testimony as a platform to promote his extremist views. The key issue for the court to decide is whether Breivik is psychotic.
‘Critically important’
Judge Wenche Elisabeth Arntzen repeatedly interrupted Breivik asking him to keep his statement short.
“It is critically important that I can explain the reason and the motive” for the massacre, Breivik said.
He said he acted in self-defence to protect Norway from Muslims by attacking the left-leaning political party he blamed for the country’s liberal immigration policies.
According to Breivik, Western Europe was gradually taken over by “Marxists and multiculturalists” after World War II, because it didn’t have “anti-communist” leaders like US Senator Joseph McCarthy. The senator dominated the early 1950s by his sensational but unproved charges of Communist subversion in high government circles in the US.
His probes gave rise to the term McCarthyism, which describes the persecution of innocent persons on the charge of being Communists.
“But even McCarthy was too moderate,” Breivik said.
Breivik has already rejected the authority of the court, calling it a vehicle of the “multiculturalist” political parties in power in Norway. He confessed to the “acts” but pleaded not guilty.
Even his lawyers concede his defense is unlikely to succeed, and said the main thing for them was to convince the court that Breivik is not insane.
One psychiatric examination found him legally insane while another reached the opposite conclusion. It is up to the panel to decide whether to send him to prison or compulsory psychiatric care.
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 considered a menace to society.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
This is exactly why his trial should not
be broadcast and his comments left in the courtroom. He should not be allowed a public platform for his vitriol.
@Ferg Breen,
Agreed. Keep it in the courtroom. Anyone wants to see or hear what is going on, can pay for it in video or booklet form. Funds can go to the families of the murdered teenagers and adults. The more he is allowed publicity the more vulnerable teenagers/adults that have low self esteme/’lost’ in a time in their life will be sucked into the shite and propaganda he’s spouting. It would be interesting to know if this narcissist, murderer was employed or was in college. Obviously, he has too much free time to think up and believe in the shite he speaks.
I dunno.. I’ve often said the amount of hate directed against Muslims screams of a more sophisticated version of the propaganda against Jews in WW2.
Yes, there may be some causes for concern with the extremists (there’s causes for concern with extremists of ANY religion) but the amount of people out there who don’t seem able to differentiate. I’ve actually seen a group of school kids recoil in horror and start blessing themselves because 2 Muslim women wearing headscarves got on the bus. Where did they learn to be so prejudiced?
I can totally see where he got the impression that his nation was under attack. He was too easily influenced toward hate.
I meant to say – he would have got his ideals from the mainstream media..
I agree completely with the media some of the stories in the right wing media are scary, the likes of the daily mail (which I have a different name for due to its fascist supporting past but can’t use on here as last time I did I was censored) and fox seem to have no ability, or more accurately want, to desperate Islam from reactionary extremists who hijack it to further their agenda of hate. However comparing islamaphobia, however wrong it may be, to the holocaust is massively extreme and as such a bit of an insult to the 6 million innocent victims of it.
Complete auto type fail I meant to say I agree completely with your comments on the media and separate Islam from radicals, sorry!
I didn’t compare islamophobia to the Holocaust though (it would be a poor comparison, one is an irrational hatred of the followers of a certain belief system and the other was a genocide).
I spoke solely of the methods of propaganda used that allowed the Nazis to get away with their heinous actions, how is that an insult to the memory of those who lost their lives? Surely trying to expose the propaganda and prevent a repeat is more respectful of their memory?
(ps, up to 12 million people lost their lives in the Holocaust, it wasn’t just the Jews who were killed)
@Shanti Om. Didn’t the Holocaust happen because of “irrational hatred of the followers of a certain belief system”?
Of course Jeroen, but I am referring to cause rather than effect. There has not been a genocide of Muslims, and I sincerely hope this continues to be the case.
The tactics of inflaming mistrust against those who are different are the same. The hatred they engender is the same. That was the only parallel I intended to draw. I specifically didn’t mention the holocaust because it was not what I was making a comparison to. What the ultimate aim of all the current propaganda is I do not know.
If he’s not insane then he’s just plain evil
Why on earth would people give your comment a thumbs down.
Do they believe that he is sane and not evil???
Surely not.
Margaret, there are people on this site who habitually thumb down every comment for reasons only known to them. We must remember that there are a lot of stupid and ignorant people in this country. Let’s see how many of them give me a nice red thumb now!
People giving thumbs down are either doing it for fun or are just pure evil…to even think killing innocent people is right,is sicken to the stomach..
I’ve never been an advocate of the death penalty but with Breivik I’d make an exception. This sick, twisted piece of humanity is no more deserving of our attention than a fly on a windscreen. To add insult to injury this freak of human nature is now somehow worth listening to by virtue of the fact that he killed 77 people?!?
And create a martyr to the other far right loons!! This is why you have to treat his case as openly and by the book as possible to negate as far as possible him being held up as a totem for an unfair system by others who share his twisted views
You create martyr’s when you give the the lunatic fringe a voice and that is exactly what is happening here. There is no suggestion of this maniac being treated unfairly. If anything his treatment has been exemplary. How he didn’t accidentally fall down a set of stairs is beyond me. 77 innocent kids and adults destroyed in an instant by a frickin’ madman with mother issues. I would kick him from here to Oslo and back again!
I didn’t suggest that he hadn’t been, I said that they needed to continue to be as fair and transparent. Like it or not he already had a voice from the moment he carried out an act that was horrific that it was picked up internationally by the media. If he was to be tried or treated in anyway different to any other murder suspect the state would leave itself open to attack from the people that a fair trial would allow the mass media to ridicule and as such they are completely right to take the higher moral ground. Also you have to kill someone for them to be a martyr, that was directed at your comment about the death penalty in isolation.
Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.. Seems a little counter intuitive.
I would prefer to let him rot with his conscience, but sadly – I don’t know if he has one. If he doesn’t, he may be a psychopath. If this is the case, while he did make the decision to do these terrible things knowingly – he did so because his mind is deficient, probably since birth. And if part of his brain doesn’t work, then killing him for it is a bit harsh.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Why should he, or anyone be executed? Do that and he doesn’t get to suffer or reflect on what he did. It is NEVER the right thing to do, to take someone’s life.
Evil bastard
Why would they even put him on the trial it’s clearly life sentence without any trial needed, it’s just costing state money. What could you defend in such mass murder case? Seriously what? He should be eliminated in fairness if you ask me, life sentence is probably too nice for that sicko anyways.
No matter how obvious it is that he is guilty, he’s still entitled to a fair trial, if he didn’t get one he could win his freedom on the grounds of his human rights being violated. Better to give him his days in court so they can legally lock him up and keep him there..
He’s getting fat isn’t he?
This man is sick :(….. I found it hard to listen to the list and injuries of young innocent kids yesterday and his face showed nothing! …. How can he sit there and proclaim it was self defence ……. Religion and wealth have cause so much problems in the world. Who cares if u are catholic, Jewish or Muslim…….. What to do with a sick evil man like that ?? Lock him up and throw away the key… I have children, if this man took my child’s life I would want him to disappear ( that’s putting it politely )
i hope he’s found insane as this will lead to a longer incarceration, presumably a man like this will never be found fit to be released into the public? hopefully at least
It’s also exactly what he doesn’t want, all the more reason to get the men in white coats to put him in a soft room on meds drooling all over his dressing gown.
Worst thing about the Norwegian system is he can serve all his sentences together and maximum time in jail in Norway is 21 years
Not as clear cut as that. Its 21 years but can be extended indefinitly.
Can only be extended if the law is changed which in this case it will be, surely.
Is this true? He’ll be out by his mid-50s? You heard the psycho, he’ll do it again, and he’ll have all that time inside to plot something even bigger and more horrendous. The mind boggles. They surely will never let this lunatic out.
Ehh bullet to the head perhaps? This might sort out this nut job
He should be made to suffer for the rest of his life.
He’s insane
I don’t understand why he cried during the reading of his manifesto. Was it out of pride at hearing his “glorious words” being read out?
If he’s a narcissist after all then that may be it..
The thing is that Norway is #1 in the HDI (Human Development Index) so they got rid of the death sentence in 1905 and the longest prison term is 22 years so he will unfortunately receive little punishment because Norway is very very civilized and it has come back to bite them in the ass
I think Breivik would agree with you on that.
Take him and his case to Southern Philippines.
have your say