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BREIVIK

Anger as police drop Breivik response probe

The family of a teenager killed by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik reacted angrily on Friday after a probe into police's slow response to the July 2011 twin attacks was dropped.

Anger as police drop Breivik response probe
Photo: Heiko Junge/Scanpix

"Apparently, no one will ever learn from the grave mistakes that were made on July 22nd, not the police nor anyone else," lamented Alf Vederhus who lost his son Haavard in Breivik's mass shooting on the island of Utøya.

The Norwegian police's internal affairs unit said in a statement on Thursday that while there were serious shortcomings in the police's response, it had dropped its investigation into complaints filed by the families of two victims because there was no evidence police had broken the law.

"I think internal affairs looked too lightly on the mistakes that were made," Vederhus told the daily Dagsavisen.

Breivik, a right-wing extremist, detonated a bomb outside the centre-left government's headquarters and then went on the rampage at a Labour Party youth camp on the island of Utøya, killing a total of 77 people, many of them teenagers.

He was in August 2012 found sane and sentenced to Norway's maximum sentence of 21 years in prison, a sentence that can be extended indefinitely if he is deemed a continued threat to society.

Breivik confessed to the attacks, calling them "cruel but necessary" to protect his country from the multiculturalism his victims embraced and which he hates.

Less than two weeks before the verdict was rendered, a commission tasked with learning lessons from the attacks harshly criticized the Norwegian authorities, saying the bombing could have been prevented and Breivik's killing spree could have been stopped earlier.

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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.