Wednesday, 18 April 2012

What Norway killer said in court












Anders Behring Breivik, 33, has pleaded not guilty. The killer said he was defending his country by setting off a car bomb that killed eight people at government headquarters in Oslo last July and then killing another 69 people in a shooting spree at a youth summer camp organised by the ruling Labour Party. While he has admitted to the killings and will likely be kept behind bars for the rest of his life, Breivik's main objective is to prove he is sane, a court judgement that he sees as vindicating his anti-Muslim and anti-immigration cause. The high school dropout has said being labelled insane would be a "fate worse than death". If found guilty and sane, Breivik faces a maximum 21-year sentence but could be held indefinitely if he is considered a continuing danger. If declared insane, he would be held in a psychiatric institution indefinitely with periodic reviews. Dressed in a dark suit and sporting a thin beard, Breivik smiled as a guard removed his handcuffs in the crowded court room. The 33-year-old then flashed his salute before shaking hands with prosecutors and court officials. Occasionally suppressing a yawn, cracking his knuckles and sipping water, he stared down at the indictment papers, following without visible emotion the list of his killings as the prosecutor read out each one. Some details were so graphic that Norwegian television bleeped out descriptions of the massacres. Here is what he had to say in court:

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