Premier apologises to MPs over terror attack ‘failings’

NorwAY’S premier Jens Stoltenberg has apologised for flaws in the response to last year’s bomb and gun rampage by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, jailed for 21 years last week for killing 77 people.

Mr Stoltenberg pledged to improve preparedness to fight terrorism and told parliament he would establish a new emergency response centre, improve co-operation between rescue teams and flows of information. His address to MPs came after a 500-page report by a government-appoined commission highlighted lack of preparedness and police blunders, which allowed Breivik to kill eight people in a bomb attack in central Oslo then gun down 69 on the island of Utoeya on 22 July, 2011.

Norway’s justice minister and police chief resigned in the aftermath, and some critics called on Mr Stoltenberg to step down.

Yesterday, Mr Stoltenberg conceded mistakes had been made, saying: “For this I apologise.” He added: “We can never correct past mistakes, but we can learn from them to create a more secure future.”