Post date: Aug 14, 2011 9:48:3 PM
Norwegian mass killer maintains his shooting 69 people at a youth camp and killing eight in a bomb blast were necessary, says his defence lawyer.
OSLO, NORWAY AUGUST 14, 2011) (NRK - Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik considered backing out of plans for massacre at Otoeya island where he killed 69 people, Norwegian broadcaster NRK reports defence lawyer Geir Lippestad said on Sunday (August 14).
In an interview with the broadcaster, Lippestad says Breivik, a self-confessed Islamic crusader on a mission to save European "Christendom" from a tide of Islam, understands his actions but justifies his cause.
"He repeatedly says during interrogations that this was horrible and difficult but he repeats as a mantra, it was necessary to go through with my cause, he says, my operation to start a war, to create change in Europe," Lippestad said on Sunday (August 14).
"It is difficult for all of us to understand these explanations but that's how I interpret him and how he justifies it to himself," Lippestad added.
Norwegian police took Breivik back to Utoeya island on Saturday (August 13) to stage a reconstruction of his hour-long slaughter there three weeks ago.
In a news conference earlier on Sunday police described Breivik as calm and cooperative, as he has remained throughout almost 60 hours of interrogation conducted since the July 22 shooting at Utoeya which followed a car bomb explosion on the same day in Oslo that killed eight.
"As mentioned his emotional life is very difficult to describe. He says he understands that everybody regards him as a demon, like he expressed it at the island yesterday, everybody sees that he has done an awful act but once again he repeats his mantra of this being necessary even though people don't understand it today," Lippestad said.
Police say an extensive reconstruction was needed to show survivors and relatives exactly what happened and jogging Breivik's memory of the event gave valuable information. They said it was clear Breivik was not unmoved at being back on Utoeya but there was no expression of regret for his actions.
"No, I don't believe I can use the word regret because he does not use that in his explanations," Lippestad said.
In a photograph of the visit carried by the VG newspaper, 32-year-old Breivik is shown standing in a shooting position, as if aiming a rifle at someone in the water trying to swim away.
In VG's long-lens pictures Breivik is shown harnessed with a rope leash while clad in a bullet-proof vest and red sweater as he led investigators around Utoeya under heavily armed protection. At times during the eight hour visit he also wore handcuffs and ankle cuffs.
The victims of the mass shooting had been attending an island summer camp run by the youth wing of Norway's Labour Party, which Breivik condemned in a rambling manifesto for promoting multiculturalism.
Most of the island victims were in their teens or 20s, and some were shot while attempting to swim to safety.
After three months of laboriously pounding and mixing fertiliser, aspirin and other chemicals on a remote farm, Breivik drove on July 22 a hire car packed with the results to the centre of Oslo, triggering the device outside government offices and killing eight people.
He then drove to the small island of Utoeya, 45 km (28 miles) away. Dressed as a policeman, he calmly shot down youngsters at the youth summer camp.