Breivik's insane and thinks he's the saviour of Europe, says lawyer

Published on Tuesday 26 July 2011 19:21

MASSACRE gunman Anders Breivik is insane and appears to have no idea of the worldwide revulsion at his acts, according to his lawyer.

Geir Lippestad spoke after talking in jail to Breivik, who told him he thought his "operation" was going to plan and asked how many people he had killed.

He revealed Breivik took drugs to be "strong, efficient and awake" before launching Friday's Oslo bomb attack and island shooting rampage that together killed 76 people.

Mr Lippestrad described Breivik, 32, as a "very cold" person who described the attacks as necessary because he was in a state of war.

Breivik has confessed to the attacks but pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges, claiming he acted to save Europe from what he says is Muslim colonisation.

Mr Lippestad said that he did not answer Breivik's question about the death toll.

"He asked me if was if I was shocked and if I could explain to him what happened," Mr Lippestad said. "He didn't know if he had succeeded with his plan."

But Mr Lippestad said Breivik felt the operation was going ahead as planned and had assumed that he would have been stopped by police sooner than he was. About 90 minutes into his rampage, a SWAT team reached him, and he surrendered.

The attacks began with a bombing outside the building that houses the prime minister's office in Oslo. Then, Breivik opened fire on an island retreat for the youth wing of the Labour Party, leaving dozens dead and hundreds scrambling to escape, many diving into the water to try to swim away.

While Breivik says he acted alone, and police believe he did not have any accomplices, he claimed that several cells of his terror organisation exist abroad, including two in Norway.

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Breivik has been charged with acts of terrorism, but Mr Lippestad said he could also be charged with crimes against humanity. Although the stiffest sentence in Norway is 21 years, the lawyer said he would never be set free.

"His reason (for the attacks] is that he wants to start a war against democracy, against the Muslims in the world, and as he said he wants to liberate Europe and the Western world," said Mr Lippestad.

Asked how Breivik sees himself, he said: "As a saviour, some kind of saviour."

Two psychiatric experts will evaluate Breivik to determine whether he is mentally ill, said Mr Lippestad, adding that it is too early to say whether that will be his defence.

"This whole case has indicated that he's insane," he said.

Meanwhile, Breivik's stepmother yesterday said he was an apparently normal youth who showed no signs of what he was planning even in the months right before the massacre.

Tove Oevermo said she kept in touch with her step-son even after she and his father divorced, when he was a teenager.

"He was just an ordinary Norwegian, a well-behaved boy. You can't put all of this together really. I saw no sign of him being a person like he must have been," she said. "It's really such a shock."Ms Oevermo married Breivik's father, Jens, when he was four. Breivik would often visit her and his father in France.

"He felt like a happy, normal child," the retired career diplomat said. "We had a very good connection, and we liked being together, even when he was a small child. I got the impression he really liked me," she said.

Ms Oevermo and Breivik's father divorced ten years later, around the time Breivik claims, in his 1,500-page manifesto, that he became estranged from his father. Ms Oevermo, 66, recalled the split, but declined to comment on what precipitated it.

She did say, however, that she got the feeling Breivik wanted to have a relationship with his father, although he never spoke of their relationship.

After her divorce, Breivik kept in touch with Ms Oevermo via an occasional email, but she did not see him very often, she said.

She said she saw him last in March or April of this year when he visited her at her home south of Oslo. He was living with his mother in Oslo at the time and stopped by to pay her a friendly house call.

She said Breivik did not seem agitated during the visit and behaved normally.

He left saying "'see you again soon', or something like that, something very normal," she said.

In recent years, Breivik would often speak of a book he was writing, Ms Oevermo said. He was proud of the book, but was evasive about its contents.

"He just told me he was trying to publish a book. He didn't say what about. He said, 'You'll see when it's finished,"' she said. "He didn't really want to get into it, but he was proud of it." In recent years, he was working on the book full-time and not working. Before that she said he worked "odd jobs" and tried to establish various companies.

Breivik released a 1,500-page manifesto shortly before carrying out the deadly attacks in Oslo and an island outside the Norwegian capital. In the sprawling document, he details his hatred for the "cultural Marxists" who have allowed Muslims to immigrate to Europe. He claims his attack is part of a coordinated effort by a group calling itself the Knights Templar to rid Europe of Muslims and left-wing politics. Police officials say they are not sure whether such a group exists.

Breivik spoke about politics "like every normal person does, not more than that. He never touched Islam and this hatred he must have had for it," Ms Oevermo said.As for the attack itself, she said she was horrified to learn the "quite informed and well-spoken" man she had known.

"People say, 'I'm shocked.' They don't know what shock is all about, physically and psychologically. It was so unreal. I couldn't believe it. I refused to believe it," she said. "If I'd had some kind of suspicion - some kind of idea that something was not right with him, it would have been easier, I think."