NORWEGIAN POLICE have given their most detailed account yet of how Anders Behring Breivik surrendered after killing 68 people on Utoeya island and eight in an earlier bomb attack in Oslo.
“When we get closer to the place where there’s shooting we started to use our voices, yelling ‘armed police’ to draw the attention to us,” squad leader Haavard Gaasbakk told reporters.
“We come to a forested area and the suspect stands there right in front of us with his hands high above his head,” Mr Gaasback said. “It was a completely normal arrest.” The police have been criticised for their failure to reach Utoeya sooner, after Breivik’s lawyer revealed that his client was surprised to have reached the island youth camp without being stopped by police – who took 90 minutes to arrive. It has emerged that the nearest police helicopter available was unable to intervene because its pilots were on holiday.
Justice minister Knut Storberget praised the team at the news conference, saying it had helped “limit the tragedy”. The leader of the country’s emergency delta force unit, Anders Snortheimsmoen, said his officers nearly shot Breivik because they feared he might be wearing an explosive belt. The decision was made by a “very narrow margin”, he said.
Mr Snortheimsmoen defended his unit’s response to the atrocities, claiming the breakdown of the team’s boat caused no significant delay.
He told reporters that even though the assigned boat quickly broke down, the team immediately jumped into another, better boat. He says his team arrived at the harbour at the same time as local police and that the boat mishap caused “no delay”.
Norwegian media have suggested police knew Breivik’s identity before they reached the island, tracing him through a rental car company from which he hired a van in which the bomb was planted. Dag Andre Johansen, Scandinavian chief executive of Avis car rental company, said Breivik had rented two vehicles, including a Volkswagen Crafter van.
Police had contacted the company after the bombing and got Breivik’s identity confirmed. But Johansen declined to say whether that contact was before Breivik was arrested on the island.
The head of the Norwegian Police Security Service, Janne Kristiansen, said yesterday she did not believe Breivik was insane, saying he was too calculating.
“So far we have no indication that he has any accomplices or that there are more cells,” said Ms Kristiansen.
"When we have finished this stage of investigation, we have to sit down, police and security services all over the world, and consider what we can do differently and what we can do to avoid these lone wolves. This is going to be our main focus in the future." –( Guardianservice/Reuters)