Norwegian Right Wing Massacre Suspect Claims Self Defense

Anders Breivik made an appearance in an Oslo courtroom and was not only defiant about his course of action, but actually claimed that his murder of 77 people, including 69 people who were shot and killed on Utoya Island at a youth camp operated by a liberal political party, was self-defense.

Breivik further claimed that the court had no jurisdiction to hear the case because it is comprised and derives authority from the same government he claims has no power and is subverting Norway through its multicultural policies.

In remarkable evidence played to a packed and shocked courtroom, recordings of cellphone calls made by the gunman to the police suggested that he tried twice to give himself up and simply went on killing in the absence of officers to accept his surrender. In the period after the first call to his final shot being fired, prosecutors said, 41 people died.

Anders Behring Breivik, 33, has admitted on several occasions that he carried out the rampage on July 22, in which 69 people were shot and killed on Utoya Island, near Oslo, where the youth wing of the governing Labor Party was holding a summer camp. Hours earlier, a car bombing in central Oslo killed eight people.

As the grisly evidence unfolded, and some of the bereaved families and survivors in the courtroom sobbed inconsolably, Mr. Breivik remained mostly impassive, and at one point seemed to a reporter watching him to stifle a yawn. Only as the court viewed a video that Mr. Breivik had made before the attacks to publicize his cause, did he break down in tears, dabbing at his face.

Asked by a judge on Monday whether he wished to plead guilty, Mr. Breivik said, “I acknowledge the acts, but I don’t plead guilty as I claim I was doing it in self-defense.” He had previously denied criminal responsibility on the ground that he was protecting Norway against Islamic immigration.

Mr. Breivik showed no emotion on Monday as the prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh solemnly and painstakingly intoned the names of the dead. “I do not recognize the Norwegian courts,” Mr. Breivik said at another point in the hearing. “You have received your mandate from political parties which support multiculturalism. I do not acknowledge the authority of the court.”

Hundreds of reporters and video crews have flooded into Oslo to cover Mr. Breivik’s hearings, which are evoking both drama and outrage as Norway relives the horror last summer that shattered its self-image as a well-ordered place of relative tranquillity and tolerance.

The bloody intrusion of urban terrorism into ordinary lives was rekindled in dozens of images of wreckage and explosions recorded by security cameras at the time of the Oslo bombing — before the killings on Utoya — and shown to the court on Monday, prompting survivors, bereaved families and journalists to gasp in shock, some of them covering their mouths with their hands.

Then, in perhaps the most wrenching moment of the first day’s hearing, the court heard a two-minute recording of the voice of an unidentified girl hiding in a toilet on the island. “He’s coming. He’s coming. Please...”

Then there was only the sound of shots being fired.

Let's not forget that Breivik believes that he was firing the first shots in a race war and he was defending white people from the others. It's racist and violent xenophobia at its most stark and naked core.

Within the past several weeks, several psychiatrists have examined him, and while two early examinations found him insane, a more recent examination found him competent to stand trial. His views are extreme, but that doesn't make him insane. He clearly seems to know right from wrong, which is something that goes to the core of whether someone can have criminal intent, particularly intent to kill.

Here, Breivik was knowingly and purposefully killing his victims because he believed that he was fighting against the Islamization-multicultural overtaking of Norway and its heritage. He understood that he was doing wrong, but did it anyways. He's providing justifications for his acts, but they are empty gestures by a hate-filled individual who shows no remorse for his actions. He clearly didn't have a problem with slaughtering dozens upon dozens of children to further his own agenda.