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Utoeya
Jens Breivik, the father of jailed Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, has written a book expressing feelings of guilt and responsibility over his son’s actions.
Anders Behring Breivik admitted killing 77 people when he bombed central Oslo and then went on a shooting spree at a youth camp on nearby Utoeya island in 2011.
His parents separated when Anders was a year old and Jens Breivik claims to have had little contact with his son.
Entitled My Fault? A Father’s Story, the book is set for release in October.
“I feel some guilt and I feel some responsibility. What would have happened if I had been a better father? Would Anders have done what he did?” Jens Breivik wrote, according to an excerpt of the book released by the publisher Juritzen.
A retired Norwegian diplomat living in southern France, Jens Breivik wrote the book with the help of a ghost writer and is expected to question his behavior as a parent and his role in the life of the radical far-right killer.
Jens Breivik has written a book expressing feelings of guilt and responsibility over son Anders’ actions
In 2012, Anders Breivik was sentenced to the maximum 21 years in prison for carrying out the country’s worst peacetime massacre in its modern history.
Anders Breivk harbored extremist right-wing views and claimed he had reacted against what he saw as a Marxist-Islamic takeover of Europe.
His deadly rampage against a Labor Party youth camp on Utoeya island was found by an Oslo court to have been a premeditated act of terrorism.
Anders Breivik’s jail term can be extended if he is deemed to remain a danger to society.
Jens Breivik has often been described as an absent father after the separation from his wife. At the time of the separation, Jens Breivik attempted to win custody over Anders but was unsuccessful, and he lost touch with his son when Anders was a teenager.
A previous book about Anders Breivik’s late mother, Wenche, portrayed Jens Breivik as a domestic tyrant.
During the murder investigation and trial, it emerged that Norwegian social services had suspected Anders Breivik was neglected at home as a child.
According to the editor of My Fault? A Father’s Story, Arve Juritzen, the book is a form of self-trial for Jens Breivik.
Jens Breivik has re-established contact his son in the last two years but has not shared the manuscript with him.
Norway is today commemorating one year since 77 people were killed and 242 hurt in gun and bomb attacks in Oslo and on the island of Utoeya.
Church services, a concert and other events are being held around Norway.
PM Jens Stoltenberg will lay wreaths and is expected to be joined by hundreds of people on Utoeya, including the families of those who were killed.
Anders Behring Breivik, who has admitted carrying out the two attacks, remains on trial.
Most of the dead were young activists with the Labour Party who had been staying on Utoeya as part of a summer camp.
Thousands of people are expected to gather in Oslo for a day of events, including a memorial service at the city’s cathedral.
Norway is commemorating one year since 77 people were killed and 242 hurt in gun and bomb attacks in Oslo and on the island of Utoeya
Jens Stoltenberg will lay a wreath at the site of the Oslo bombing at 09:30 and then travel to Utoeya to give a speech to Labour Party youth, before laying a wreath there at 18:45 – the time Anders Breivik was arrested a year ago.
In the evening there will be a national memorial concert with mainly Norwegian musicians.
Many of the buildings that were damaged in the bomb attack have not yet been fully repaired.
The prime minister’s office and the ministry of health buildings are still covered in plastic.
The attacks, regarded as the worst act of violence in Norway since World War II, sparked a national debate about the nature of tolerance and democracy in the country.
Anders Breivik, who has been on trial for three months, has tried to justify the attacks by claiming he was trying to stop Muslims from taking over Norway.
But the government, and much of the population, have actively promoted tolerance and openness to counter Anders Breivik’s views.
“I think that people thought it a bit naive to cling to these values of openness in a situation like that,” said Vegard Groeslie Wennesland, a Labour Party activist who survived the attack.
“But I think it’s more naive to think that brutal police, or more restrictive policies will bring you a safer society.”
Judges are to announce next month whether Anders Breivik is sane or insane, and therefore whether he will be given a long prison sentence or be sent to a secure psychiatric ward.
In the fifth day of his trial, Anders Behring Breivik has described how he shot people who were “begging for their lives” during Utoeya island rampage in which 69 people died last July.
Testifying before an Oslo court, Anders Breivik described seeing people curled up and “completely paralyzed” as he reloaded his weapon and shot them in the head.
Earlier Anders Breivik, 33, said he was normally a nice person but had shut off his emotions to carry out the attacks.
The main aim of the trial is to decide whether he is sane or insane.
On 22 July 2011, Anders Breivik set off a car bomb near government buildings in Oslo, killing eight, and then massacred 69 participants in a Labour Party youth camp on the nearby island of Utoeya.
In Friday’s testimony, Anders Breivik said he had arrived on the island dressed as a policeman, and told security officials at the camp he had been posted there following the bombings in the capital.
Anders Breivik then described in chilling detail how he killed people.
Before shooting his first victims, Anders Breivik said he had “100 voices” in his head telling him not to do it.
But after that moment of hesitation, he said he pulled the trigger, shot two people in the head and moved on.
Displaying no emotion, Anders Breivik went on to say he had entered a cafe where several people were hiding.
“Some of them are completely paralyzed. They cannot run,” he said.
“Two people were curled up.”
In the fifth day of his trial, Anders Behring Breivik has described how he shot people during Utoeya island rampage
Anders Breivik said he reloaded after running out of ammunition.
“People were begging for their lives. I just shot them in the head.”
Others pretended to be dead, he added, but he knew they had not been wounded and shot them too.
Anders Breivik continued his rampage around the island, luring youths from hiding places by telling them he was a police officer who was there to protect them.
When they came out, he said: “I shot towards many of them aiming at their heads.”
The stunned silence in the courtroom was replaced with tears.
Anders Breivik admits killing all 77 victims but denies criminal responsibility, saying he was defending Norway from multiculturalism.
He said he had envisaged the most important attack as being the Oslo bombing, but Utoeya “became the most important attack when the government building did not collapse” as planned.
Depending on whether he is found sane or not, he faces either prison or committal to a psychiatric institution.
Anders Breivik himself maintains he is sane but a practitioner of political extremism.
Earlier on Friday, he insisted he was “under normal circumstances a very nice person, very caring about those around me”.
He said he “absolutely” understood why his testimony was horrifying to others.
But said he had embarked on a deliberate programme of “dehumanization” in 2006 to prepare to carry out killings.
Anders Breivik added that empathy was not possible, as he would “break down mentally” if he tried to comprehend what he had done.
Asked if he could feel sadness, Anders Breivik said “yes”, saying the funeral of a friend’s brother had been his “saddest day”.
In additional points, Anders Breivik:
• claimed he had not wished to kill “civilians” when he had targeted the government buildings in Oslo, only “government targets”, but it was impossible to exclude “civilian” deaths entirely
• said that from 2006 he had studied the weaknesses and strengths of organizations from the IRA to al-Qaeda, concluding that the most successful was al-Qaeda, because they “embrace martyrdom” – “and that is key to the successful resistance fight”.
• said it was impossible for “cultural conservatives” like him to get any of their ideas published in the media or in books, due to an alleged project to protect liberal beliefs
• said he believed Japan and South Korea were ideal states, as they had “taken a stand against multiculturalism and Marxism in the 1970s”
In Thursday’s testimony, Anders Breivik said he hoped his car bomb in Oslo would kill the whole government, and had also hoped to kill all those on Utoeya – more than 500 in all.
Anders Breivik’s evidence is scheduled to last five days, concluding on Monday. The entire proceedings are expected to last 10 weeks.
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Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has told his trial in Oslo he believes there can be only two “just” outcomes to his trial – acquittal or the death penalty.
Anders Breivik, 33, who killed 77 people last July, said he considered a lengthy jail sentence “a pathetic punishment”. Norway does not have the death penalty.
He also said he had been “very surprised” to have survived the day of the attacks.
Prosecutors have been quizzing him on his links with militant nationalists.
On the third day of the trial they have been trying to disprove Anders Breivik’s claim of the existence of a far-right European network.
Under cross-examination, Anders Breivik said: “There are only two just and fair outcomes of this trial – acquittal or capital punishment. I consider 21 years of prison as a pathetic punishment.”
Asked if he wanted the court to give him the death penalty, Anders Breivik replied: “No, but I would have respected it. I would not recognize 21 years of prison, it’s ridiculous.”
Anders Breivik killed 69 people at a Labour Party youth camp on Utoeya island, having first set off a bomb outside a government building in Oslo that killed eight people.
He has said he carried out the attacks to defend “ethnic Norwegians” from rising multiculturalism.
“I was very surprised that I survived that day,” Anders Breivik told the court on Wednesday.
“I had no other plans for what to do. I considered the chance less than 5% that I would survive the bombing. But not only that, I survived Utoeya.”
Anders Breivik has told his trial in Oslo he believes there can be only two "just" outcomes to his trial, acquittal or the death penalty
Anders Breivik was also questioned about his religious beliefs by a lawyer for the victims.
“Well, I am a militant Christian; to prevent the de-Christianisation of Europe is very important,” he said.
“But this does not mean we want to introduce a Christian theocracy. We are not Christian fundamentalists. I believe in God and I believe in a life after death.”
Answering questions from a judge he described himself as an “anti-Nazi”.
“A National Socialist would say, <<Norway for the Norwegians>>. I am more liberal, I would accept 2% perhaps [of the population not being ethnically Norwegian].”
The court is seeking to establish whether Anders Breivik is sane and can be jailed.
Earlier, Anders Breivik said the far-right network, which he named as the Knights Templar, met in London to decide on its platform.
He said the group was “not an organization in a conventional sense” but consisted of “independent cells”.
Prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh told him the purpose of her questioning was to shed doubt on the network’s existence.
In other parts of his testimony on Wednesday, Anders Breivik told the court:
• the “big problem” for militant nationalists in Europe was that they had had very few role models since World War II
• he and other militant nationalists were “selling dreams” to inspire others
• he met a Serb nationalist in Liberia in 2001 who was one of the founding members of the Knights Templar
• he met his English “mentor”, whose codename he gave as Richard the Lionheart, in London
• his own codename was Sigurd, after a 12th Century Norwegian king
The prosecution showed the court an excerpt from Anders Breivik’s 1,500-page manifesto.
He wrote that he underwent a “complete screening and background check” for the Knights Templar to ensure that he was of “the desired calibre”.
He claimed the group was considering “several hundred” individuals throughout Europe for a training course.
Anders Breivik has begun each court appearance with a right-wing clenched-fist salute.
His lawyers, addressing reporters after the day’s hearing was adjourned, said they had asked him to stop making the gesture.
Anders Breivik’s testimony, and that of his witnesses, is not being broadcast. His testimony is expected to last for a total of five days.
The leader of a support group for survivors of the 22 July attacks and victims’ families says Anders Breivik will be judged as a mass murderer, not as a man with a political agenda.
“The focus from our point of view is that he is not tried for his political views; he is on trial because he killed people, killed youngsters on Utoeya and my colleagues in the government quarters and that is the main focus for us,” said Trond Blattmann.
A contradictory picture of Anders Breivik is emerging – a man who hates Muslims, but admired Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Anders Breivik sees himself as a great Crusader, when in fact he was a high school drop out, a failed businessman and an addict of computer war games.
Earlier, Anders Breivik’s lawyers warned that many Norwegians would find his comments upsetting.
If Anders Breivik is judged sane and found guilty of murder, he faces a maximum of 21 years in jail, although that can be extended if he is deemed a threat to the public.
If he is judged to be insane, Anders Breivik will be committed to a psychiatric institution.
Prosecution plans for Anders Breivik questioning:
• Wednesday: Anders Breivik’s thinking and life from 2001
• Thursday: Bombing of government offices in Oslo
• Friday: Shootings on Utoeya island
• Monday: Events after the bombing and shootings
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