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TERROR TRIAL: DAY 4

BREIVIK

‘My aim was to kill entire government’: Breivik

Anders Behring Breivik told a court on Thursday he meant to kill the entire Norwegian government, including the prime minister, in his bomb attack in the centre of Olso last July.

'My aim was to kill entire government': Breivik
Photo: Morten Holm/Scanpix

"The aim of the attack on the government buildings … was to kill the entire Norwegian government, including the PM … and everyone in the building," Breivik said on the fourth day of his trial.

On July 22nd, the right-wing extremist had parked a van filled with 950 kilos of explosives at the foot of the 17-floor tower that houses the offices of the Labour Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who was not present at the time.

Eight people were killed in the attack which he carried out shortly before he embarked on a shooting spree on a nearby island.

"There is not a political target in Norway that is more attractive" than the government buildings, Breivik said, pointing out that it was relatively isolated and there was therefore little chance of killing many "innocent civilians."

When pressed on whom he regarded as legitimate targets for such an attack, Breivik said any "political activists," which he defined as "journalists, academics and politicians who actively work for multiculturalism."

He assured prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh she was not on his list of "traitors" and was considered an innocent civilian.

On July 22nd, Breivik had listened to the radio as he sped away from the bomb site and was disappointed by the first reports that he had not brought down the building and only one person had died.

On Thursday, he told the court he had decided in advance he would consider the bombing a "fiasco" if he didn't kill more than 12 people, and that this was what led him to decide to complete his plan and head to Utøya island.

He said earlier on Thursday he had also aimed to kill all of the 569 people on the island where he massacred 69 people, and had wanted to behead former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.

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BREIVIK

Norway mosque shooter ‘has admitted the facts’: Police

A Norwegian man suspected of killing his step sister and opening fire in a mosque near Oslo last weekend, has admitted to the crimes though he has not officially entered a plea, police said on Friday.

Norway mosque shooter 'has admitted the facts': Police
Philip Manshaus appears in court on August 12. Photo: Cornelius Poppe / NTB Scanpix / AFP
Philip Manshaus, 21, was remanded in custody Monday, suspected of murder and a “terrorist act” that police say he filmed himself committing.
   
Answering police questions on Friday, “the suspect admits the facts but has not taken a formal position as to the charges,” Oslo police official Pal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby said in a statement.
   
Manshaus is suspected of murdering his 17-year-old step sister Johanne Zhangjia Ihle-Hansen, before entering the Al-Noor mosque in an affluent Oslo suburb and opening fire before he was overpowered by a 65-year-old man.
   
Just three worshippers were in the mosque at the time, and there were no serious injuries.
   
Manshaus appeared in court this week with two black eyes and scrapes and bruises to his face, neck and hands.
   
Police have said he has “extreme right views” and “xenophobic positions” and that he had filmed the mosque attack with a camera mounted on a helmet. He had initially denied the accusations.
   
The incident came amid a rise in white supremacy attacks around the world, including the recent El Paso massacre in the United States.
   
Norway witnessed one of the worst-ever attacks by a rightwing extremist in July 2011, when Anders Behring Breivik, who said he feared a “Muslim invasion”, killed 77 people in a truck bomb blast near government offices in Oslo and a shooting spree at a Labour Party youth camp on the island of Utøya.