OSLO — Anders Behring Breivik, wearing a red sweater instead of the military uniform he requested, made his first court appearance Monday and calmly told authorities he was working with two other “cells” in an effort to liberate Europe from Muslims.
The claim of collaboration – which authorities seemed to be treating skeptically but said they could not rule out – came as police officials revised the death toll from Friday’s Oslo bombing and island attack downward from 93 to 76.
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Later Monday, Norway’s largest newspaper, Aftenposten, reported Breivik also apparently intended to target former Labour Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, who gave a speech on the island Friday but left before he arrived.
The paper did not disclose its sources but said Breivik told police he originally had planned to be on the idyllic island when Brundtland addressed hundreds of teenage participants at the Labour Youth League summer camp but was delayed.
Meanwhile, Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) head Janne Kristiansen said Monday Breivik came to authorities’ attention earlier because of purchases from a Polish business selling chemicals but his actions were considered too insignificant to warrant a follow-up, AFP reported.
“In March, we received … a list of 50-60 names and his name was on it because he spent 120 krone ($22) at a business in Poland, Kristiansen told Norway’s public television channel NRK.
“We don’t have the right to put people’s names on the register just like that but we checked if we had anything on these people, if any of them could be connected to any other intelligence we had but we had absolutely nothing on Behring Breivik. He lived a life that was incredibly respectful of the law.”
On Monday night, exactly three days after the twin terror attacks, a huge crowd estimated at between 100,000 and 150,000 massed in downtown Oslo under skies still light with the summer sun to remember the victims.
Many raised single roses skyward and wiped away tears during remarks by speakers, including Prime Minster Jens Stoltenberg and Crown Prince Haakon, who said, “Tonight the streets are filled with love.”
Earlier Monday, Judge Kim Heger ordered the 32-year-old Breivik to be remanded in custody for eight weeks — the first four of which are to be in solitary confinement — following a 30-minute, closed-door hearing amid tight security.
His lawyer, Geir Lippestad, told NRK television Monday that Breivik “said several times that he expected to be shot dead” by angry Norwegians on his way to the courtroom, AFP reported.
Prosecutor Chrisitan Hatlo told an afternoon press conference Breivik was “very willing to explain why he did this,” at the court appearance but when he began reading from a personal manifesto, the judge stopped him.
Hatlo also said Breivik was “under the understanding he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.”
Breivik, he said, “seems not be affected by events” although he did ask Heger why the hearing was closed – meaning no media was available to hear him.
He confessed to carrying out both the bombing in the government quarter of downtown Oslo and then, shortly afterwards, turning up at nearby Utoya Island and opening fire on hundreds of teens gathered at the youth camp.
However, he did not plead guilty, saying it was necessary to save Norway and Western Europe from a “Muslim takeover.” Breivik accused Norway’s ruling Labour Party of a “mass import of Muslims” and said he aimed to hinder future recruitment.
Even Breivik’s own father said he wished his son had died, AFP reported. Jens Breivik, who had not been in touch with his son for 15 years, said from his home in Cournanel in the south of France, “I think that ultimately he should have taken his own life rather than kill so many people.
“I will never have any more contact with him,” Breivik told Norway’s TV2. “When I think of what happened, I’m filled with despair. I still don’t understand how something like this could happen. No one normal could do that.”
At the afternoon press conference, Hatlo said Breivik said “he operated in a cell or group and there should be two other cells or individuals…
“We cannot quite, and I underline the ‘quite,’ rule out that someone else was involved,” he said. “I can’t give any more details.”
At the same news conference, police said the number of those killed on the island had been revised downward from 86 to 68 and the number killed in Oslo revised upward from seven to eight.
Asked about the discrepancies, one police officer said in the confusion on the island Friday night, “our priority was to help the injured and save lives, then it became dark…maybe some people were counted twice.”
One of the victims was the stepbrother of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit and the children of senior Labour Party figures also were believed to be among the dead.
The maximum prison sentence in Norway is 21 years, leading to calls for Norway to reinstate the death penalty. The sentence can be extended if a prisoner is deemed a risk to the public, The Wall Street Journal reported.