ANDERS BEHRING Breivik, the self-confessed perpetrator of last Friday’s twin attacks in Norway, has been dubbed “insane” by his defence lawyer and placed on suicide watch in his Oslo remand cell.
Four days after Breivik’s bombing and shooting spree, Norwegian police yesterday began publishing the names of the 76 victims while defending their handling of events.
Breivik told his defence lawyer he “hates all western ideas and the values of democracies” and wanted to attack multiculturalism, “cultural Marxism” and the ruling Labour party.
“This whole case indicates that he is insane; he’s in a war, and the rest of the world, especially the western world, doesn’t understand this point of view,” said defence lawyer Geir Lippestad at a press conference. “He believes that when you’re at war you can do things without pleading guilty.”
After detonating a powerful bomb on Friday afternoon in central Oslo, killing at least eight people, he drove 40km to Utoeya island and shot 68 teenagers attending a summer camp there.
Breivik (32) conceded responsibility for Norway’s worst post-war massacre but was remanded in custody on Monday for eight weeks – four of them in isolation – after pleading not-guilty to terrorism charges carrying a maximum jail sentence of 21 years.
Mr Lippestad said it was too early to say whether Breivik would enter an insanity plea, but he vowed to quit if his client did not undergo a psychological evaluation. The prosecution indicated yesterday that it would consider pressing charges of crimes against humanity, carrying a maximum 30-year sentence.
At a second press conference, an increasingly defensive Norwegian police chief said his officers were at the beginning of a “very demanding investigation” on Utoeya island, with over 30 forensic investigators likely to work there for at least two weeks.
As the search for the bodies of remaining victims in the lake around Utoeya island entered its fourth day, a separate team continued their work at the bomb site in central Oslo.
Despite reports of additional bombs, police said they had not found any suspicious devices in extensive searches of the “virtually ruined” government ministry complex.
Encouraging Oslo residents to return to the city centre, police said they were still hunting for body parts of the eight victims.
They said there was no evidence Breivik had worked with accomplices, while prosecutors played down his claims that he belonged to a wider organisation.
At his press conference, Mr Lippestad said he was surprised Breivik had chosen him as his lawyer but, after initial hesitation, accepted the assignment to “strengthen democracy”.
Mr Lippestad, a card-carrying member of the same Labour Party his client loathes, made his name a decade ago after defending a man found guilty of the racially motivated murder of a Swedish teenager.
Mr Lippestad claimed Breivik was “surprised” he had not been stopped by police after the Oslo bomb attack and had made it to Utoeya for his 90-minute shooting spree.
That remark reignited the debate about the police response to the attacks.
They confirmed yesterday the first emergency call was received at 5.33pm on Friday, conceding that the shooting might have started earlier. After arriving at the village of Sundvollen near the island 40 minutes later, police were unable to find a suitable boat. It took another hour for a boat to arrive from Oslo, by which time locals had begun rescuing teenagers with their own boats.
Police chief Johan Fredriksen said an inquiry into the response would beign in the autumn. “We don’t mind being criticised,” he said, “but beneath our uniforms we are human beings.”
Norwegian police last night detonated a cache of explosives found at a farm leased by Breivik.
Police prosecutor Trine Dyngeland said: “the police carried out a controlled detonation of the explosives.” She said no one was hurt in the controlled blast at Rena, about 160 kilometres north of Oslo. She declined to estimate what quantities were found.
Police believe that Breivik made his bomb using fertiliser. He bought fertiliser under the cover that he was a farmer.