The man allegedly behind the Norway massacre has been described as a disgruntled loner hostile to the multiculturalism of his homeland, write DEREK SCALLYand AUDREY ANDERSENin Oslo
WHEN ANDERS Behring Breivik was taken in for questioning by police, the athletic blond 32-year-old seemed happy, even anxious, to explain himself.
The man allegedly behind Norway’s worst massacre since the second World War has been described as a disgruntled loner who planned the attacks to trigger a “revolution” against multiculturalism and what he saw as the growing threat of radical Islam.
Yesterday a 1,500-page manifesto emerged in which the author describes the EU as “a slow-motion coup d’etat” and “organised treason”. It outlines plans for a “pre-emptive war waged . . . to repel, defeat or weaken an ongoing Islamic invasion/colonisation”
Breivik was born in Oslo in February 1979 and has described himself to police as a conservative Christian and a nationalist with no interest in neo-Nazi ideology.
His lawyer said he had admitted carrying out the attacks, and said he acted alone, though police are keeping an open mind on accomplices.
Born and raised in the Norwegian capital, he is remembered by former schoolmates as someone “who often went around in his own thoughts, who followed others but who at the same time showed an extreme determination and thought differently”.
“He was very different,” said fellow pupil Christer Kildbo to the tabloid VG. “It was a tough environment in school at that time and even though he was not bullied he was a little out of things.”
In secondary school he became interested in physical training and political theory.
During a decade as a member of the Progress Party Youth (FpU) from 1997 on, he appears to have switched between far-right and far-left thinking.
His parents separated when he was 16; his father moved to France, his mother lives in Oslo and he has an older sister who lives abroad.
After finishing school he worked in telesales and is remembered by former co-workers as a polite if distant colleague.
At this time he began posting on various extremist Norwegian websites.
In one, characteristic, post, he wrote: “I pray and ask God that if he does not want a Marxist-Islamist alliance [or] Islam to swallow European Christendom, then He will ensure that those who fight for European Christendom must succeed.”
In spring this year, he moved to the farm in the village of Asta, two hours north of Oslo, where he reportedly began to accumulate fertiliser that may have been used in the Oslo bomb.
In the manifesto attributed to him, available yesterday on the internet, he describes testing bombs there earlier this year.
The manifesto is titled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence.
Opening with a Templar cross, the text ranges from accounts of European politics to diary entries about bomb-making and the purchase of guns in advance of the attacks.
Beginning in London in 2002, the text took shape over a decade, ending in planning for “Operation Martyr” in 2009, though large chunks appear to have been plagiarised from various sources, including Ted “Unabomber” Kaczynski.
As a self-described “Justiciar Knight Commander for Knights Templar Europe”, the author predicts a European war in three stages, beginning in 2030 and ending in 2083, the 400th anniversary of the 1683 defence of Vienna against the Ottoman Turks.
In a diary section, the author describes “eight assaults, attempted robberies and multiple threats” at the hands of Muslim attackers. “A broken nose is the worst thing that occurred.”
The author predicts that if he survives his plan, his “friends and family [will] detest me and call me a monster; the united global multiculturalist media will have their hands full figuring out multiple ways to character assassinate, vilify and demonise”.