Norway Shooting Suspect Anders Breivik: Attacks Were 'Price of Their Treason'
Judge closes hearing to media -- Breivik confessed but has not pleaded guilty.
July 25, 2011 — -- The man suspected of killing more than 70 people in a separate bombing and shooting spree in Norway Friday said he attacked the country's liberal party because the "price of their treason is what they had to pay."
Anders Breivik made the statement in a closed court hearing today in which Judge Kim Heger said he would be held without bond for eight weeks -- four in solitary confinement -- until his next court appearance. Breivik told the court that he committed the crimes, but did not plead guilty, Heger said. He was, as he told the court, trying to save Norway and Europe from cultural Marxism and Muslimization.
Though Breivik previously told police he acted alone, today he told the court there were two more "cells" in his "organization."
In a video posted online, Breivik uses comics and signs to illustrate his views against what he perceived as communism and anti-nationalism in the Labor Party-led government. In a 1,500-page online manifesto, Breivik described his contempt for the Muslim population in Oslo and mulled even deadlier attacks by Christian conservatives -- including one involving a weapon of mass destruction.
READ: Alleged Norway Shooter Considered WMD Attack, Jihadi Alliance
Heger had closed the hearing to the media after Breivik said that he planned to use his deadly attacks as "marketing" for his manifesto against multi-ethnicity. Breivik asked the judge to allow him to wear a uniform to his court appearance but the request was denied.
Breivik, 32, was arrested Friday after allegedly shooting 68 people, many of them teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on an island outside Oslo. He is also accused of planting a bomb in Oslo that killed eight others and blew out windows at a government building that included the prime minister's office just hours before. Police previously reported 86 people had been killed in the shooting and seven more in the bombing.
Breivik's lawyer, Geir Lippestad, said Breivik believed his attack was "gruesome" but necessary to change Norwegian society.
READ: Anders Breivik's Lawyer Speaks Out
The online anti-government rants, as well as the suspected use of a fertilizer-based explosive, invited comparisons to past U.S. domestic terrorists such as Timothy McVeigh, prompting one Norwegian police official to call Breivik's attacks "Norway's Oklahoma City."
Norway observed a moment of silence at noon local time Monday for the 76 people killed.
