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BREIVIK

Breivik posed ‘to lighten the mood’ after massacre

Anders Behring Breivik told an Oslo court Tuesday he had posed jokingly for the police cameras to "lighten the mood" after his arrest following his massacre on a Norwegian island last year.

Breivik posed 'to lighten the mood' after massacre
Anders Behring Breivik smiling in court last week after Professor Ulrik Fredrik Malt suggested he probably has Asperger syndrome (Photo: Heiko Junge/Scanpix)

During his first interrogation immediately after his arrest, Breivik had first refused to allow himself to be photographed but had then posed for the camera in his underwear showing off his muscles "sort of like a body-builder," a police interrogator testified last month.

"They asked me to take off my clothes… I flexed my muscles a little at that time as a joke to lighten the mood," the 33-year-old self confessed killer told the court on the 35th day of his trial.

"I was trying to be funny, but it wasn't funny. I am critical of myself on that," he added.

The far-right extremist is on trial for the killing of 77 people, mostly teenagers, in a shooting rampage on the island of Utøya last July and the bombing of a government building in Oslo.

While Breivik's guilt is not in doubt, his sanity is at the heart of the trial at the Oslo district court, where he is charged with committing acts of terrorism.

Experts have starkly different opinions about Breivik's sanity, with two court-ordered psychiatric evaluations reaching opposite conclusions.

The first conducted last year found him to be suffering from "paranoid schizophrenia" and therefore not responsible for his actions, while the second carried out shortly before his trial began in April concluded that he was sane.

Other experts testifying before the court have offered varying diagnoses for Breivik, but have all agreed that he is criminally sane.

If Breivik is found sane, he faces a 21-year jail term which could be extended indefinitely if he is still considered a threat to society. If he is found insane he would receive closed psychiatric care, possibly for life.

The five judges are due to deliver their verdict either on July 2th or August 24th.

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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.