The Right-wing extremist who has admitted killing 77 people in Norway told a court yesterday that he deserved a medal of honour for the bloodshed, and demanded to be set free.
Anders Behring Breivik smirked and gave a salute as he was led in to the Oslo district court, handcuffed and dressed in a dark suit, for his last detention hearing before his trial starts on April 16.
He stretched out his arms in what his lawyer, Geir Lippestad, said was “some kind of Right-wing extremist greeting”.
Breivik, a 32-year-old Norwegian, told the court that Norway’s most deadly peacetime attack was a strike against “traitors” he said are embracing immigration to promote “an Islamic colonisation of Norway”. He said: “I am a militant nationalist. I represent the Norwegian indigenous peoples. We in the Norwegian resistance movement are not going to sit still and see that we are turned into a minority in our own country.”
About 100 survivors and relatives of victims watched in disbelief as Breivik asked to be released, and told the judge he should be awarded Norway’s highest military medal for the July 22 massacre. There was hollow laughter from the public gallery as he made his remarks.
Breivik admitted setting off a bomb outside the government headquarters in Oslo and opening fire with a rifle and a handgun at a Labour Party youth camp on Utoya island, near the capital. But he denied criminal responsibility and rejected the authority of the court. Judge Wenche Fliflet Gjelsten ruled that he should stay in custody. - Daily Mail